


black flies on the windowsill

by millcrs (remoose)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Depression, Drowning, Eudora Patch Lives, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inspired by Stranger Things (TV 2016), Mental Health Issues, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, The Kraken - Freeform, diego has elements of eleven's powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:53:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 118,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24667933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remoose/pseuds/millcrs
Summary: Diego ties the cloth around his eyes and turns the police scanner to static. Without the hundred voices speaking to each other in code over assaults and bodega robberies, he can slip seamlessly into the void like a fish to water.-:-Two was four years old when Dad first took him to the bath.It took less than a year for him to realise that his body would never be his own.ORWhile testing Diego’s ability to hold his breath under water, Sir Reginald Hargreeves discovers that his forever disappointing Number Two has a third, and far more useful, power.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Grace Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves/Eudora Patch, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves
Comments: 305
Kudos: 486





	1. the bath.

**Author's Note:**

> i promise i will make this make sense. inspiration for anything to do with the so-called "bath" came entirely from that scene in stranger things where papa holds el's hand all the way up to the sensory deprivation tank and she ultimately opens the gate. 90% of this fic is based on that scene tbh. but no, diego will not be opening a gate; ben can already do that in his tummy.

Two is four years old when Dad first takes him to the bath. 

It is the middle of the night when Pogo wakes him, day clothes still on, no cane needed back then. Pogo lets him hold his hand, because Two is sleepy and keeps rubbing his eyes to rid them of the midnight blur. 

He's never been up so late, never been allowed to walk around the house with no shoes on before. Pogo says it is fine, says Dad won't mind and that he'll be back to bed in no time at all. Says to be quiet now, because Two hasn't yet learned the art of whispering, because he'll wake his siblings and then Dad will be upset with him.

Two takes three hurried steps for each one of Pogo's, his pyjamas are a little too long in the leg and he knows the bottoms will be dirty, but Dad has woken him in the middle of the night for a special job -- not _One,_ not any of the other numbers -- so Two can't find it in himself to worry about it. 

He squeezes his small fist in anticipation of what it might be, as Pogo takes him deep, deeper down the stairs and then onto an elevator that none of them are allowed to use by themselves. 

Pogo’s hairy fingers press a button that whooshes them down what only feels like a few feet but must have been a hundred, because Two has never seen this part of the house before -- not that he's been to every part of the house. Five says there are forty-two bedrooms, which he counted. Two has never made it that far. Four and Six always take him off to play games instead. 

When the grate opens there is a tunnel with a tiny window at the end of it. Everything is dark and for a moment Two allows himself to be scared, because it's cold and damp and his toes keep curling in attempts to rid themselves of numbness. He thinks that's where they're going, to the tiny window in what looks like a big and heavy metal door, but Pogo gently veers them to the left and down another corridor -- equally as dark but smaller in size, narrower, with no discernable end. 

When Pogo opens a door about twenty feet down the corridor, Dad is there. He's been waiting. Two is giddy with the thought of it. Though Dad looks annoyed, like maybe he and Pogo took too long, Two can't help but cast a quick look around to make sure Number One isn't there also. 

But he's not. It's _just_ Two. Two who's been woken from his bed in the middle of the night for something special and important; because Dad has always been super strict about bedtime and wouldn't break the curfew for no reason at all. 

There is a suit on a hanger and Dad hands it to him without explanation, even though there's nowhere to change. His pyjamas are a little too big anyway, so he slips the blue pinstripe bottoms off, lets them pool around his ankles, and steps into the stretchy material with his button up still on. 

" _Quickly,_ Number Two."

And he doesn't want to disappoint, not when he's been given the time to show Dad how good he is, so he slips his pyjama shirt off and tugs the suit up from where it bunches and rolls around his tummy. 

There is a panel that circles his entire middle, little pockets with something heavy that makes his bare shoulders droop and has his knees feeling a little wobbly. But Two is strong, just as strong as One is, if given the opportunity to show it. So he leaves his pyjamas on the floor where Pogo immediately scoops them up, and stands in front of Dad because he's ready for whatever special mission this is. 

Dad holds his hand then, something he's never done before, and Two's chest unfurls with a warmth and sweetness that has him wondering if this is what it feels like to be cared about. 

Dad’s hands feel funny -- not like Pogo’s or any of the nannies who used to take care of them but keep disappearing without saying goodbye. His hands wrinkle, and stretch the baggy skin out when he squeezes Two’s hand too tight. Two squeezes back.

Shoulders back, chin up, he follows Dad up the steps and thinks little of where they lead. It’s at the top that he sees, the iron grate ice cold on his soles, Pogo ten feet below. He sees a metal wheel that takes Dad quite a bit of effort to turn. It squeaks with rust, has the hair at the nape of Two’s neck on end. When it’s opened, when Two looks inside, it’s to see a glass tube of azure blue that lightens and lightens as Pogo opens some kind of shutter from below and lets the neon hum in. 

“Get in, Number Two.” Dad says, pocket watch at the ready, monocle pinching the wrinkled skin around his eye in concentration. 

“But Dad,” Two begins, in his most self-assured tone. He knows what he wants to say, that he wants to talk to Dad with the familiarity that One does, so he ploughs on; eyes up, trying to meet Dad’s, fingers pinching the rubbery softness of his new attire. “The suit is too _heavy._ How will I swim?”

“Strength should not be a concern, Number Two. I’m certain Number One would not dare to ask such a question.” Two deflates without much fuss, bony shoulders drooping and his gaze falling to the raised floor. He tries not to look too hard at the tube, because he doesn’t want to think about why he has to get into it. 

“It is of no matter, Number Two. Tonight’s exercise is not to demonstrate your aquatic abilities. It is one of endurance.” 

Two wishes Pogo would chime in and explain what it is that Dad is saying. He doesn’t understand. Maybe Number One would. Or Number Five, who grasps most things with little effort. 

“Your swimming lessons, Number Two.” Dad implores, clearly wanting to set things in motion. But Two can’t show Dad how great he is if Dad doesn’t explain what he wants. “Loath as I am to admit it, while your technique was lacking, you held your breath in the pool for far longer than any of your siblings -- even Number One. Shocking. Not even a struggle when Number Four held you under in attempts to deviate from my lesson plan. So, we must explore this further, Number Two, and I am not willing to waste any of your daytime lessons as an expense. _You,_ of all people, cannot afford to miss a single one.”

The wobble of his lip is something that Two hasn’t yet learned to control. The tears that well up along sooty eyelashes threaten to spill over, that blur his vision as he nods at Dad and sits himself at the edge of the opening; tucking his chin against the silky material of his swimsuit so as to hide his shame.

There is a ladder made of rope that catches between his toes. Dad says to hold onto it, to lower himself in, and stay down for as long as physically possible. No faking distress to get out early. Number One wouldn’t dare do such a thing.

Two doesn’t think he can hold his breath all that long. Their swimming lesson hardly even amounts to a full hour most days. Does Dad want him to stay down in the tank all night?

Two doesn’t get to ask, because Dad’s cold hand presses to the goose flesh of his shoulder and urges him into the water. 

“Deep breath, Number Two. Now, hold it.”

It hits him all at once. Not the temperature, because the water certainly isn’t ice cold, but it is a system shock, the way it swallows his small frame up in one large _gulp._

Two opens his mouth to respond, but whatever words had wanted to work their way into his tongue and out between his lips simply cannot. His response is stuck, a choking thing that catches at the base of his throat and refuses to budge. He does not have time to get anything substantial out, not before the water begins to swell around his throat and he is forced to ingest one final gulp of air before he is submerged entirely, floating to the bottom of the tank like a lost leaf in the dead of fall. 

Two is a big boy, so he rejects any semblance of fear that might cause him to spill over at the edges. He swallows it. He forces it to sit there and does not allow it to budge. 

Two is not scared. Two is merely doing what his father asks of him.

Two is good, and he'd very much like to be _best._

_-:-_

Later on in his life, Number Two will think back to how things were easier in that moment. Because he was only four years old and the young body can adapt to traumatic situations even better than that of an adult. 

He will think about how, in comparison to everything that came after, this was merely a toe in the pool, a midnight dip with nothing separating him from the world but a curved sheet of reinforced glass. 

How a boy of merely four years could never anticipate that the word _bath_ would carry the same weight, the same sea of fear as a _tsunami._

How being able to hold your breath for small infinities does not mean that you cannot _drown._


	2. mom.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So he only kicks for as long as it takes him to settle. A flutter of nerves and he shoots up like a fish, the press of his heart against his ribcage and how it _slows, slows, slows_ down with Two’s complete lack of breathing as he sinks again to the bottom of the bath.

A lady appears in the following months. Number Two is the first to call her _Mom._

He does not know the meaning of the word. Mouths something like it around the catch of his tongue as she smoothes a pinkish band-aid to the bump of his knee. 

Number Two says  _ thank you, _ because Dad has not taught them much about how to talk to people, but manners are important to him. The word that follows Two’s  _ thanks _ starts with the letter  _ M,  _ bounces between the press of his lips into an awkward and unknown vowel. He does not know where he’s heard it before. Perhaps in a dream, or in the pitch black of the basement when he closes his eyes and catches wisps of things in the backs of his eye sockets that are never substantial enough to have Dad even  _ look  _ at him. 

And before he can take it back and return to training with the others, Grace’s (for that is what Dad has called her) strawberry smile parts to pearly whites and she utters words that crack open the shell of something inside the slight cage of Number Two’s ribs. 

“Call me Mom, sweetie.”

-:-

Mom gets them up for breakfast each morning and buttons Six's shirt up when he does it wrong. She smoothes out the puckered skin between Five's brow and does Three's hair just how she likes. 

Mom pinches Seven’s cheeks fondly when she trims her bangs and lets Four coat his lashes in an inky black with the wand of her mascara (helps him wipe it off each night before bed too, lest dad see the smudges of charcoal on Four’s cheeks the following morning). 

Mom has One open any sticky jars with the clench of his knuckles and the twist of his wrist. Mom has Two do the same with the end of the blade. She praises their strengths in ways that don't make Two angry for the attention One gets; even though Two knows that she's strong enough to do anything herself.

And in the dead of night, when Two’s pyjamas still pool around his ankles and gather dirt across the ancient floors, when he strips in the damp cold of the basement and hopes Dad can’t see the thousands upon thousands of goosebumps that litter his skin, Mom is there. 

Mom fixes the crooked line of the seam on Two’s leg. She ensures that the suit isn’t catching on the skin of his shoulders, crouches to match his height and calls him brave. _ Her brave boy. _

But when she waves from the other side of the glass and follows Dad as they leave him to the machines and monitors and the wires that tangle with his toes and the water all around, Two doesn’t feel brave in the slightest. 

-:-

Two is five years old when his words go missing. 

He chases them at the beginnings of sentences, the middles, the ends. Tries to catch up with them as they leave his mouth in a hurry and don’t wait for him to follow. The other numbers don’t mention it, how he’s clammed up all of a sudden. It’s likely that they haven’t really noticed how much of an issue it's become for him, because they do not possess that kind of familiarity with each other yet -- certainly not outside of lessons and training time. 

Dad doesn’t say much about it -- the lack of words, that is. Two does not have to utter words in order for Dad to read the whir of the needle that spells out information of his progress in the bath. Two doesn’t need to speak when he can hold his breath for hours at a time (seven is his record), when he’s got arms that can throw with startling accuracy and feet that can walk, kick, run. 

So Two saves his words. Keeps the ones he means the most close to his chest while the other numbers babble on about the development of their powers and what they’re planning to do on Saturday during the leisure period. They gossip and nag at one another, learn how to navigate Five’s sarcasm and respond in kind. They -- even Number Seven, who has shown so far that she is nothing but ordinary -- learn how to speak to one another and communicate with phrases and terms that Two cannot parrot back to them, but whispers to himself in the dead of night when no one can hear and Dad is too busy to bother with the bath. 

But it is not one of those nights, and after dinner, when Mom herds them all to bed and checks that each number is tucked in tight, she comes to Two’s room last. He knows this is because tonight is a bath night and Dad’s decided he’s too old to be changing like a baby down in the basement. Says he is to be changed prior to the session and present himself punctually. 

Except, Two has yet to put his suit on, and the hour is pushing close to nine. Mom comes in then, all warm light and spinning skirts, a little busier than usual, a skip in her step that speaks of urgency. 

“Oh,  _ honey, _ I’m so sorry for the delay. Your brother is rather hard to catch when he zaps around the room like that.” She pauses then, a tilt of her head and a slight drop in her smile. 

“You’re not in your suit,  _ silly. _ Your father is waiting, come on n-- ”

The abrupt shake of Two’s head stops Mom in her tracks. She frowns then, but it’s something soft and speaks volumes of a feeling that Two can’t quite name. 

He knows there is a word for it inside of him, mixed up with all the others that he has learned but cannot speak. But he does his best to gather them up anyway, tells himself that even when he’s been bold and gotten into a fight with Number One or refused to eat his carrots, Mom has never gotten mad. That she won’t get mad when he messes up and can’t get the words to come out in the way that everyone elses’ do. 

“No…” And the following word, one that he’s been rolling around in his dreams for the past week, struggling with at the base of his throat and all the way up when he does his best to say it in the quiet of his own room. It burns on the way up. But Two says it anyway, because Mom is just smiling. Mom has not said a thing. 

“B-b-ba-bath. No b-bath.”

Before Mom can answer and Two can gauge just how much safety there is to be found in this woman who’s been in his life for what feels like forever, but in reality has only been a year, there is a noise by the door. It’s a ringing sneer that is musical in its smoothness, the ease with which it travels from intent and across to where Two is slouched on his bed. 

“Stinky Two doesn’t want a bath! Stinky  _ Number Two, _ that’s clever, right, Six? Like a p-- ”

“Four!” Mom approaches the open door, her pace brisk and businesslike, her tone sharp and commanding. “Bed with the both of you! And do let dear Six get his rest, Number Four. It is not nice to yell such things at this hour of the night. Such a sweet boy saying such foul things, not my Four. Back to bed, now.”

Two can no longer hide the quickened breaths and the utter mortification at his messy speech becoming commonplace. As something that Four did not find the need to remark upon -- or maybe it was a small mercy. 

His eyes find the floor so he does not have to witness how Mom is distracted with shooing the others to bed, so he does not have to think that they heard what he had said and how poorly it had been executed. So he does not have to wonder if maybe they just think Two is like that and always has been. 

So tangled in his thoughts, Two does not notice that Mom has returned until the curl of her index finger tips his chin upwards to meet her gaze. She is smiling, like Four did not intrude, like Two did not humiliate himself. 

But there is something about her face. How she looks as though she’s had an entire conversation in her own head about Two and what she wishes to say to him.

He wonders if there are words that Mom keeps inside too. 

“My darling, your father is waiting. Why don’t we get your suit on and head downstairs, yes?”

And Two does as Mom says, because Mom always follows Dad’s rules. There is no avoiding the bath, the saltwater burn that invades his cuts and scrapes from days of training, the solid  _ thunk  _ of Dad shutting the lid and trapping him, the imagined click of his pocket watch because Two cannot hear anything when the bath mutes every one of his senses. 

Mom holds his hand now, not Dad, not Pogo, as she delicately leads him through the house and down to the basement without causing any further commotion. 

Her touch is soft, fingers light in his own but grounding. Her hold is not like that of the weights that encircle his stomach, but she lightens the load, eases him down each step to soften the impact, allows him to lean against the hoop of her spotted skirt in the elevator, where she knows Dad will not see. 

And when they arrive at the bath room, Dad is irritated and Pogo is relieved. Dad takes little care when pulling Two forward and in his hands there is a cap made out of what looks like a web of wires, interwoven and gathered at a single point in the back, where they run along the floor and towards the machines. 

Two does not know what this means, but he does not have it in him to speak out in objection, not after how he failed with Mom. 

“Keep still, Number Two.” The wires tug at his hair and pinch at his scalp as Dad fixes the cap into place. “This equipment is vital in studying your progress -- if there is any progress to study at all.”

Which Two feels is a little unfair -- he has managed seven whole hours in the bath now, without any need to take a breath; and there are things that happen in his head when he’s weighed down there, people and places and feelings that he’s never encountered; when the absence of breath makes room for a special kind of silence that will never be found elsewhere. 

He fails to mention this to Dad, every single time but one. It’s not because he’s afraid -- no  _ way  _ \-- it’s because he doesn’t want Dad to see until he’s sure it’s real. And the one time Two alludes to the potential of something else -- a  _ special  _ power, maybe almost as cool and special as the other numbers’ -- Dad doesn’t even  _ believe  _ him. 

“You are to stay in the tank for as long as you possibly can. None of this flailing around over your alleged hunger -- Grace has informed me of your calorie intake in the last twenty-four hours and it is sufficient to last you through the night.” 

The cap won’t stick down properly, but it doesn’t seem to matter all that much right now. Two nods at Dad’s words and fixes his posture into a ramrod mimic of Number One’s. 

“It is imperative that you focus, Number Two. Our approach will differ this time, but you are to persevere if you wish to improve any of your arguable abilities at all, and be in any way equal to your siblings. Now, up you go! Grace, go upstairs and ensure the recordings are operating adequately.”

“All done, sir.” Mom beams from below, and Two’s toes catch a little on the steps as he climbs. 

“I would prefer to stay, if that would be alright with you. To monitor Number Two’s energy levels in order to decide what kind of sustenance will improve his proficiency in training with the other children tomorrow.”

She finishes the request with a smile. Mom’s blank eyes do their best to capture Dad’s attention, her smile a waxy thing that is spread wider than Two has ever seen; almost unnatural. 

Either it works, or Dad can’t find it in himself to care what Grace does in the hours she is not needed. Regardless, Two is relieved; allows his shoulders to sag with he feeling of it while Dad’s eyes are drawn elsewhere. 

“Very well. But do not consider interfering, Grace, it is none of your concern -- Number Two cannot drown.”

Mom nods, though it seems like it pains her to do so (does Mom feel pain? Two cannot figure it out). She steps towards the glass casing of the tank and waits. She waits while Dad connects the thread of wires that sprout from the base of Two’s cap and attaches them to a machine at the bottom of the steps. 

Two tries not to move too much as he swings his legs over the edge of the tank. Dad does not like it when he writhes in the bath, he certainly won’t like it if Two messes with his new machine. 

He waits for the all clear, tugs at the wires so there is enough give for him to slide in without breaking any of the connections. 

The cap sits funny and pinches at the hair on his scalp, but Two keeps quiet, because maybe if he’s really good this time Mom can stay every time. Maybe it won’t be so bad, and getting into his suit after dinner won’t fill him with the kind of dread that he imagines a warrior might feel before they go into battle. 

His legs swing back and forth in the water -- not hot, not cold, just nothing -- and when Dad starts the machines and Pogo gets up top to close the lid over his head, Two hooks his toes around the ladder like always and eases his way into the water with as little a splash as he can manage. 

It’s quiet then, like always. The white noise ripples and pulsates against his ear canal and shrinks his world to a square metre space. 

The bath is full to the top. Two knows this, because he has panicked a few times now, feared that he might not be able to hold his breath for long at all and that Dad and Pogo will forget about him. It doesn’t stop him from kicking his legs as best he can to try and near the top anyway. Even when Mom is there to watch with her snow white smile and Dad looks as though he’s expecting big things from Number Two tonight. 

So he only kicks for as long as it takes him to settle. A flutter of nerves and he shoots up like a fish, the press of his heart against his ribcage and how it  _ slows, slows, slows  _ down with Two’s complete lack of breathing as he sinks again to the bottom of the bath.

Dad will be making note of this, he knows. How quick it takes for Two to calm down. He could say that it’s because he’s brave -- braver than Number One and  _ much  _ stronger on the inside. That it’s because he’s been practising and being in the bath for such a long time doesn’t scare him so much any more. He could even say that it’s because One got a slice of pie when he managed to lift that cinder block two weeks ago, despite still being small like the rest of them, and Two wanted his own slice of pie to match. 

But the truth of it all boils down to a single factor: 

Mom stayed. 

Mom stayed and stays and will stay for every night she can after that. Two can wrap himself up in the comfort of that -- not the chill of the water, not the ice of his blades.

His arms are not long enough yet to meet when they wrap her in a hug, and he is not even capable of kicking to the top of the bath, scrambling to seek out her embrace.

But when Dad drags him to the basement and throws him into the water, with Two stuck and bolted, with Mom standing obediently beyond the glass, Two can lift his heavy hands in a small wave and Mom? Mom  _ always  _ waves back. 

-:-

Until the following year, that is, when Two sees a stranger in the black of his vision and things get impossibly worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i firmly believe that klaus was always a brat, ghosts or not. though it's not necessarily a bad thing. 
> 
> also, i'm aware that the panels on eleven's suit in ST are most likely to help her float, but weights make more sense in diego's case. thanks so much for the kudos on the last chapter, they mean a lot!


	3. void.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps it is this matter that fuels him. Stripped of his knives and stripped of his words, Two is nothing more than a boy that does not need to breathe.

Combat training is new to them. It’s something the numbers are not familiar with beyond the realms of wrestling on the living room floor between lessons in mythology and geography, or fights with Number One when Two felt like he was being bossy. 

Sometimes, it’s fun. Like when One lifts him so high up in the air that he feels his stomach swoop from inside and the rush floods all the way to the tips of his toes. 

Sometimes, it’s like they can imagine it’s only ever going to be pretend. That whatever tiny issue they’re having can be easily resolved by a headbutt, or an elbow to the gut. 

It is why Dad chooses them first. Pits One against Two on the padded mats in the training room and tells them to have at it. 

One wins, because One always wins. At six years old he is taller than all the other numbers, over a head taller than Number Two and growing drastically day by day. 

Which is unfair, because Two eats all his vegetables, just like Mom says. His milk teeth bite into stems of broccoli with such ferocity that it alone makes him feel stronger. He does his personalised workouts, follows the strings that tie up everything in his line of sight, and whenever he throws, Two does not miss. 

The fact had been presented to Reginald Hargreeves quite early on. While Two certainly feared his father and knew that to disobey him was to be punished, he did not like the people that initially entered as parental replacements. 

Nannies upon nannies would flood through the doors of the Umbrella Academy in the early days, before Two can really remember, before  _ Mom. _

But it had been a morning when Two felt cranky, felt unrest and a bone deep chill from the bath the night prior. Number Seven never wanted to eat her oatmeal, but they had to, it was the rule. Except Number Two didn’t want to eat his either and the nanny wouldn’t stop poking and prodding, teasing at his hair where it was still damp and crunchy with salt water (because he couldn’t fix his hair himself back then, not without Mom). 

Typically, Seven would be stuck at the table long after the other numbers, forced to finish her bowl before being allowed to join the others in training, but Two was likely to join her on this particular morning. 

Any spoonful he tried to take got stuck in his mouth, like paste between his teeth. He had words back then, ones he could use with little sign of a struggle, but they were swallowed down with the solid mass of gross and slimy oats. 

Dr Pogo often told him it was rude to make a face, to not accept the food so carefully prepared for him, but Two had to disagree in this instance. 

This nanny was particularly pushy, hunched over Seven’s chair and getting entirely too close, waving the spoon in her face like she was some big baby that needed to be fed by someone else. Two knew this to be untrue -- Number Seven liked vegetable soup and roasted potatoes and warm glasses of milk, and Two didn’t like this shoddy oatmeal either. 

When the nanny wouldn’t give up, when it became clear that she was content to sit here for hours, singing dumb songs and poking at them with the end of her spoon, when training had long since begun but Two couldn’t attend without first eating his oatmeal, Two did the first thing that occurred to his body, without much thought involved at all. 

The knife that he swiped from the tray of cutlery in the centre of the table flew from his left hand before it had dawned on Seven or the nanny that he’d even thrown it. 

Two hadn’t wanted to hurt the nanny, not like that, he’d only wanted her to stop  _ talking.  _

But she turned to him then, back to Number Seven, as she clutched at her neck and pawed helplessly at the butter knife that had become lodged mercilessly between the roof of her mouth and the back of her throat. 

Seven’s eyes were wide and round like marbles when she looked his way, mouth slightly parted in as much of a gasp as she could manage. Two knew as well as she that he had done something very terrible, but rather than mention the hacking and sputtering of the woman who couldn’t manage to dislodge the butter knife from her throat, Seven merely slid from her seat and walked the few feet over to his, taking his hand in her own and leading him out of the kitchen, oatmeal be damned. 

Before she could speak, before she could tell him in that small voice of hers that _ It’s okay, Two, _ the pair realised that the nanny doubled over on the floor was not their only company. 

Stood at the entrance to the kitchen, their father’s face was difficult to read. And for a moment, a small and seemingly insignificant moment, Sir Reginald Hargreeves looked shocked by the sight before him, as though he could not quite believe that Two -- wiry, weepy, _ needy _ Number Two -- had managed to accomplish such a feat. 

Two ripped his hand from Seven’s and made to meet his father at the door. His father who saw everything from behind his monocle and who looked down at Two with something akin to interest (who chanced a glance at Seven, with a look that Two could not comprehend). Who demanded Two explain how he managed to lodge the knife in the nanny’s throat when she was facing in an entirely different direction. 

And Two did not know what to tell his father, because it just happened. He did not need to focus his vision and take aim, he simply thought of his desired outcome with such a blinding level of childhood rage that the knife flew from his hand and followed the strings of his intent. 

Dad grabbed him by the shoulder then, calling for Pogo to come and collect Vanya to train with the others. Dad squeezed the thin layer of flesh over bone with the wrinkled white of his old hands and steered Two towards a private training room off the foyer. 

And when Two looked up at his father and asked: 

“Are you happy that I got more powers than the other numbers now?” 

His father’s expression shifted back to its regular, unimpressed mask. Apathy, poorly concealing the disappointment beneath.

“Two insignificant powers do not amount to  _ one  _ that is worthy of my time, child.”

Two has gotten very good with his knives since, though it wasn’t that hard to grasp in the first place. The only challenging part being that he has to ensure the knives don’t cut his hands prior to him throwing them. His palms are covered in scars and calluses now. Six years old with white and purple etched across his skin --  _ ugly, _ as Three likes to remind him. Not pretty and soft like her own hands. 

The thing is, their combat sessions do not allow weapons. Two has no clear advantage over Number One when father demands that they turn their childish fights into actual combat, with strategy and thought put into each hit. 

Two loses because he is second to One. Like always. He loses to Three when she rumours him into standing frozen, in the middle of the mat, or doing something equally embarrassing. He loses to Five when he zaps across the room, climbs onto Two’s back in that dirty trick of his, saved for wrestling over whose turn it is to use the wireless radio, not intended for use in  _ actual  _ combat. 

Four and Six are always paired off to work separately, lighter combat to build Four’s strength, calmer sparring to ease the writhing Horror in Six’s stomach. 

But Two, his powers are entirely useless in scenarios such as these. When he does not have knives, when all that matters is how hard he can hit and how well he can take a punch. 

His little discovery, almost three years ago, in the kitchen with Number Seven means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Because when Two is left on the mat, bleeding from a busted lip and One’s foot is heavy like a cinder block on his chest, Dad serves Two with the same look of absolute disdain that follows him as far as the depths of his dreams. 

-:-

Perhaps it is this matter that fuels him. Stripped of his knives and stripped of his words, Two is nothing more than a boy that does not need to breathe. 

He does not allow for the feeling that digs a pit in his chest and plants something vile there, to fester and rot, but it consumes him regardless. His will means little in the matter, particularly when Dad pulls him up on his inadequacies. When he announces at dinner, while Two chokes and sputters his way through a response to a question, that he is  _ hopeless.  _

Occasionally, Four and Six will drag him from these spells, invite him to play pretend in Four’s room while he tells them of all the funny characters that fill the space, that talk to no one but him. 

Four is loud where they are always meant to be quiet, jumping on the bed to pin Two to the mattress, to tickle his tummy (though not Six’s -- they all learned that one the hard way). 

He stops when Two pinches at his sides hard enough to earn a yelp, and barely a glance from Six while he’s drawing something on the sketchpad that Mom ordered him to go with his colouring pencils. 

“Your pinches are like daggers, Two. Who needs knives when you’ve got nails pointier than Three’s.”

Two rises from his position flat on the bed, hooks his elbows beneath his back and tilts his head up to look Four dead in the eye. 

“Are you c-calling m-me-me g-girl-gir--”

“ _ Girly? _ Yeah, I am.” Two feels himself flush -- not because being girly is a bad thing, but because he couldn’t even manage to get the word out. Six doesn’t allow that train of thought though, looking up at them from his latest masterpiece.

“You should let him finish.” 

“ _ What? _ ”

“Two can’t talk if you won’t let him.” 

Before he has time to marvel on how Six can grasp at things that upset Two so deep inside, Mom is at the door. With a smile, with her hands loosely clasped at her front like she isn’t about to deliver bad news.

For a moment, Four stills above him, shakes where his arms hold him up, preventing him from crushing Two. But Mom stops all that with some simple words, strung together with a syrupy sweet tone that never fails to lull them into a false sense of security. 

“Two, my darling, back to your room now. I’ve laid your clothes out on the bed. Six, off to brush your teeth. Two minutes and a pea-sized amount of toothpaste, remember?”

“Yes, Mom.” Six collects his pencils and paper without much fuss, tucking a folded piece into Two’s hands as he passes. 

“Good boy.” She smiles down at him, a gentle hand falling to lovingly pat the top of his head in the doorway. “Now, Four, do let Two go. You’re going to be absolutely  _ exhausted  _ in the morning after all that playing.”

Two does as Mom says and changes into his suit (it’s a size bigger now, Mom says he’s growing so fast). The weights are a little heavier now and his shoulders ache each morning with the strain of them from the nights before, but the material doesn’t pinch at the skin around his underarms and legs anymore, doesn’t leave pinkish marks and indents that itch under his Umbrella Academy uniform. 

He waits in his room for Mom to escort him down and tells himself that it’s not so bad anymore. It’s nice to have Mom and Dad, and sometimes even Pogo, sitting behind the glass and devoted to observing Two and  _ only  _ Two. 

He convinces himself of the comfort, pretends Dad’s  _ so  _ interested in his progress, that maybe deep down, beneath all that disdain and disappointment that he carries for his forever second best, he’s  _ proud  _ of what Two has managed to accomplish. Nine  _ whole  _ hours in the bath now, without even falling asleep; without need for food or sustenance of any kind. 

Yes, his tummy grumbles and his eyes sting with the effort of keeping them open for such a length of time at such an age, but Two has to better himself, he has to be better and  _ best  _ and more interesting than the others so Dad will look at him the way he looks at One. 

He tucks the piece of paper that Six gave him under his pillow without looking at it. At least Four and Six like him more than they like One. Told him so when he asked, under the tent of Four’s bed sheets that they haphazardly strung together while the others were doing their reading time. 

Maybe Two should actually participate in his reading time, finish the chapters in tandem with the other numbers. But Six is miles ahead of everyone else and Four manages to squeeze everything in at the last minute, so the urgency escapes Two when it comes down to the little things. 

He makes a mental note to actually sit down and get it done after his time in the bath, though he doubts it will happen. He’s always so tired after. That hardly ever seems to make a difference to Dad, who expects Two to have all his work done  _ and  _ stay under water for most of the night.

One gets to  _ sleep. _ Two has to stay sunken in a giant bath all night. 

Mom comes in then, before he can allow thoughts like that to colour the determination he’s feeling this evening. He is going to impress Dad this time. His throwing skills might not, but this will. Two is certain of it. 

Mom has stitched together a small pair of slippers for him to wear down to the basement. Cottony and soft against the soles of his feet, slippery on the marble tile. She must notice Two’s eagerness, it must surprise her for how she looks at him. One says Mom’s reactions are programmed, that she has been made to act the way actual people act, but that doesn’t mean she feels any of these things. 

Two finds it funny that One considers any of them to be actual people. 

But the slippers mean something. Mom’s seen how Two wriggles his toes under the cover of his quilt before he goes to sleep each night (before he passes out from exhaustion, early each morning). She fills hot water bottles at pinches at his feet to warm them with her hands. Counts each toe with the tips of her painted finger nails. 

Now, Two rubs his fingers over the smooth and painted surface of her nails, fingers catching on the silky material of her skirt as Mom speaks so softly and sweetly about how she’s going to bundle him up all warm and toasty when it’s time for bed again. 

“Once I’ve finished stitching your quilt, you’ll feel as though you’re sleeping on a flurry of clouds, my darling. There will be no more shivering, not from my dear boy.”

Two hides a smile behind the palm of his hand, squeezes the feeling into a fist and slots it between Mom’s fingers. 

She is a robot, yes, but Two’s hands are always colder. 

The smile is kept safe between the both of them as they approach the bath. Behind the pair, Pogo shuts the door. There is a pinch to his brow, a kind of worry that Two only ever sees when the other numbers are mean to Seven, or when Six gets tummy aches and has to go right to the infirmary. 

Doing his best not to pass much heed of Pogo and his tasks for the evening, Two sticks to Mom like glue while she rights his suit like always, while she takes his wire cap from Dad and fixes it to his head, with a kiss to the forehead for good measure. 

“Now, my darling,” she begins, hunkered down in a crouch as she takes his slippers off and pockets them in her pink dress. “Remember, we are all here with you. The water is your friend. It doesn’t want to hurt you.”

“Ok-okay, M-Mo-Mom.” 

“Good boy. Now, up you go.”

They do not need to hold his hand on the way up anymore. Pogo simply follows, like always, to shut the iron lid above Two’s head. To twist and lock Two into place, with hardly a sliver of air between the surface of the water and his only exit. 

Two sinks to the bottom of the bath, much faster than usual, now that more weights have been added. Somewhere inside, he is grateful for this -- maybe Dad noticed how strong he  _ actually  _ is in training; figured that Two was in need of an upgrade as,  _ clearly, _ he is getting stronger by the day.

These hopeful thoughts, however, the ones that so rarely visit Two at all -- not even in the realm of his dreams -- are quite rapidly pressed beneath a veil of darkness. 

Beyond the thick sheet of glass, he can see Mom, the way her eyes pinch as though she is taking the time to process the circumstances surrounding the sight before her; the possible outcomes. 

The sight of Two slowly disappearing from the room as Pogo regrettably drags a sheet of black across the outside of the bath.

The thing is, Dad has never closed the shutters over the tank.

_ How will you see if I need to come up? _ Two wants to ask. 

_ How will you see that I’m okay? _

The truth is, it is likely that Dad does not care much about whether or not Two is okay, so long as Two later functions how he is supposed to. Pogo cares, though he is sometimes terrible at showing it. And Mom does, this is the one thing Two has never been able to find it in himself to doubt. 

Mom cares, Mom _ loves, _ and Two gives every bit of his heart to her in return. Every bit of his  _ trust.  _

To Dad, perhaps, this was a distraction. A thing to be remedied. Or maybe Two’s powers were simply boring him, and he was willing to try anything for a substantial result. 

Two does not know. He cannot keep his thoughts and words in order long enough to consider the reasoning behind this. He can hardly watch, as the one thing -- the one  _ person  _ \-- who has kept him going throughout the traumas of his individual training, is wiped from view. Only for Two to be left in the dark.

And before the black envelopes him entirely, Two lifts his hand, barely visible now to his own eyes, and waves at Mom. 

He does not get to see her wave back.

-:-

In the dark, there is nothing. The slight squeeze that typically accompanies the containment of his breath, the slow, dulling beat of his heart. 

Two cannot see, his own limbs now entirely absorbed by the pitch black of the bath. He is settled at the bottom, but suspended in the dark. 

_ Thud...Thud….. Thud. _

He waits for the next heartbeat, and the one to follow after that, but they take their time and do not rush to meet the anticipation of his mind. 

The space between beats lengthens, and Two is plunged further into a cavern of sorts, lost in the absence of everything, in the focus on a single, inescapable thing.

_ Thud… Thud… Thud. _

He sees it then. The water is no longer soaking him, but simply beneath the curl of his toes. The black is all around, an infinite thing that stretches far and wide, that swallows up the beat that begins in his chest. 

And in the distance, a figure. Laying prone, grey from the tint of their skin to the tips of their hair. 

Two has not seen many people, not outside of the nannies who have come and gone, or the few people that come to the house to assist with their training. He does not know this person -- a woman -- but she does not look well. 

She doesn’t quite appear to be as old as Dad, but she is not nearly as strong as him. A blanket is tucked up around her chest, arms resting atop the sheets as though she cannot bear to lift them. Her hair is so long, the colour of cloudy silverware, fine like spun silk. Two cannot help himself when he reaches out to touch it; perhaps a desperation for some kind of sensation in this void that he finds himself in. 

The bitten ends of his fingers brush against the strands, softly, so as to not wake her. Gentle, how Mom touches, soothing, because Two can see that there is something wrong, that the veins beneath her skin protrude in small bumps. And though Two is cold, always, in a way that makes the other numbers shy from his touch, this woman bleeds a kind of cold that he has never before encountered. 

Absently, he leans over the bed to tug her blanket up a little higher. He does not notice that her eyes have opened, not until he has finished fixing the hem. 

It frightens him, how she looks at him, and all of a sudden Two realises that this is not something he has ever done. This is a place he has never been with a person that he does not know, and he is _ scared.  _

For a moment, he forgets that he cannot breathe in this place, in the hidden depths of the bath (because the water is gone, because he doesn’t even know how long he’s been under), so when the woman reaches out to touch him, Two rears back and swallows one giant gulp of something that is not water, but is not air either. 

The woman manages to grab him then, a soft touch that tightens into something a tad more pressing. She looks at him, right in the eye, though he longs to look elsewhere, out into the pitch black that surrounds him. 

She holds him in place with a strength that does not at all match her appearance, and in her attempt at a smile, there is a kind of innate safety that eases Two beyond the clutches of his panic, and softens the ambiguous tautness of his chest so that he can manage to hold what little of his breath remains within it.

Wrinkled hands smoothing down the slope of his cheeks, swollen fingers brushing behind his ear, the woman’s eyes begin to flutter shut once again, but not before she whispers a single word that burns Two at his core. 

But she’s gone then, vanishes in a liquid like plume of smoke. The floor is pulled from beneath Two, and there is a hand that drags him  _ up, up, up _ until he breaks the surface of the bath, soaked through to the bone. 

Dad’s sleeves are rolled as far as his elbow, but his shirt is wet all over; with water, with blood. Two does not remember getting hurt. 

From where he lays, on the lip of the tank, with Dad and Mom and Pogo above him and the machines that are meant to read his vitals screaming in a violent cacophony, Two sees that he too is covered in blood. He can taste it in his mouth, bubbling at the back of his throat. Coppery and sharp, tainted with the salt from the water. 

Mom pulls napkins from the depths of her hidden pockets, wiping at his mouth and nose in an attempt to slow the bleeding. She hushes and soothes where Dad tugs at his eyelids, where he has Two squinting with the white light of a small torch. 

Delicately, he removes the wires from Two’s crown, where they have gone askew and reddened with blood. He hands the device to Pogo, who looks more frazzled than Two has ever seen him, as the wailing of the machines around them begin to subside. 

“This requires cleaning, Pogo. And please gather all the data immediately, lest the hardware combust.” 

Dad’s got a hand to Two’s chest, holding him steady (pinning him down), while Mom smiles as if nothing at all is wrong. Two curls around his father and takes measured breaths, swallowing down the blood and feeling it join the weight of the salt water in his stomach. 

He doesn’t like how Dad is looking at him -- as if Two has really messed up -- and he wants to explain himself, or to ask what happened, but none of it makes sense. 

“D-dad, I- ”

“Not now, Number Two. You have made enough of a mess this evening, writhing about before the camera like that, short-circuiting my devices. It is unacceptable.”

Two doesn’t know what  _ happened, _ or why Dad is so mad at him. He doesn’t know what it is that has Pogo so frightened, or Mom resorting to peak efficiency, checking his ears for any more blood, checking his head for  _ something. _

A sob leaves him then, but is quickly reined in, wrapped tightly and caught at the back of his throat, with no permission from Two to escape. He tries again, to explain to Dad, to justify the mess he’s unwillingly made, to make him  _ understand. _

"D-D-Da-Dad, I s-saw a wo-wom"

"Spit it out, Number Two! I don't have all day." And Dad grabs him, shakes him so mercilessly that Two can feel the hot beginnings of bruises on his shoulders. 

"Wo-Woman. There w-w-wa-was a w-woman."

So Two tells his father, of the woman in the white bed sheets and how soft her hair was. How she held his face, despite not looking like she possessed the strength to do so. How maybe the woman ought to go to the infirmary, so Mom and Pogo can make her all better. 

And despite how long it takes, Dad listens. He devotes his attention to Two, and does not interrupt as he tells of what he saw. Dad finally asks if the woman said anything, anything at all, and Two’s brow bunches in an unwillingness to share.

“Lying does not go without punishment, Number Two. Lying by omission is equally despicable.” 

He’s still holding Two, arms that had, only for a moment, slackened their grip, now pinching once more and making Two  _ hurt.  _

“It-it wa-was just o-one one w-wo-word.”

Like it isn’t important, though Two knows, without a single shadow of doubt, that it is. But when he doesn’t elaborate, refusing to share the truth, Dad stands and begins to lift Two by the tops of his arms, back towards the bath. 

Two kicks and he yells and he promises to tell. Anything at all in order to avoid a second trip into the water, so much in merely a few hours. His father puts him back down, the heels of his bare feet balancing on the edge of the bath. 

“Out with it, Number Two. Now!”

“She, she s-said R-Reggie.”

The foolish, baby part of Two had hoped for a remark, perhaps even a positive one, because maybe the lady is one of Dad’s friends. Dad doesn’t seem to have many of those. 

Instead, all he gets is a slap to the face. 

-:-

Back in his bedroom, Mom helps Two change. She dries the tacky skin under his swimsuit with a feather touch to his chest and fills hot water bottles to warm his bed sheets. There is a cut on the rise of his cheek, and a split where his lip has burst open. He doesn’t want to dirty her dress, but she calls him silly and kisses the bandaid on his cheek anyway. 

“My brave boy, you deserve some rest. Such a  _ long  _ night you’ve had.” Mom tucks the blanket up to his chin and busies herself with warming his toes. 

Two wants to ask, _ how long?  _

He wants to ask,  _ did I break my record, at least?  _

He wants to say,  _ I don’t know where I went Mom. But I don’t think I want to go back there.  _

But none of it comes out, and Two can’t force it. So he nods and smiles at her like everything is okay, because Mom always responds well to things like that, and she has to go and charge for at least an hour before the sun comes up and it’s time to wake the others. 

When she leaves, Two sits up in his bed and lifts his pillow to find the piece of paper that Six handed him earlier. 

It is a drawing, the best drawing that he has ever seen. Three figures stand, identities evident by their facial features, by their difference in height; Four has shot up, recently, a growth spurt that Mom assures the rest of them they will have. 

In the picture, Four is holding hands with Two and Six either side of him, and in the background there are mountains and trees and birds in the sky, like they all saw in a geography book once, and a small wooden house in one of the trees that Six has labelled with _ Even Numbers Only.  _

The sun is high and there are animals in the trees behind them: some horses and monkeys and giraffes. Mom is there too, picking flowers, he thinks. 

Two has to fold it back up then, because his tears are making blotts on the paper and he doesn’t want to ruin Six’s work. He tucks it back under his pillow for safe keeping, and climbs out of bed with a hot water bottle held to his chest. 

It is then that Two begins his prescribed reading. He does not stop until the sun sends stripes of bright yellow light through the panes of his bedroom window, until the bell rings as Mom calls them down for breakfast. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a lot longer than i originally planned, but lots of important groundwork was set in this chapter. i do believe that diego being far more openly offended by vanya's book in season one than any of their other siblings has a lot to do with feeling like she betrayed some deeper trust between the two of them -- but also, i couldn't resist writing baby vanya's calm af reaction to killing a nanny. plus klaus and ben!! how precious. 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this and thank you so much for taking the time to read! do let me know what you thought if you have the time <3


	4. buzzcut.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two ducks his head and pretends to read while Four reaches for him, having a tendency lately to grab Two’s skull at the strangest of times because he likes the _fuzzy feeling under his fingers._
> 
> Four never thinks much of touch, and it’s nice. How he melts into any of them whenever he is permitted to. Smooth and easy, moving organically so as to not surprise the other numbers, all of which, including Two, are prone to jumping at any unannounced affection. Such as now: how his legs are thrown across Two’s lap as he leans into his side, faces smushed together while he helps Two whiz through his prescribed reading. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's some cute two and four sibling fluff aw. thanks so much for all the kudos!
> 
> and please note that i've made some additions in the tags x

The buzzcut is new. A close crop unlike that of which Two has ever seen. 

All the other boys get to keep the hair that sits neatly atop their heads, as long as it’s combed and trimmed and kept clean. The girls have always been able to style their hair however they please. Two, in a recent development, has a cold head, for how Mom was made to take the clippers to his scalp and sheer some inches off. 

Dad _makes_ Mom do it, unlike other times where Dad would have had no problem with grabbing Two and taking from him the things that he most liked. Dad doesn’t dare touch One, not _ever,_ but he’s never had a problem with manhandling Two -- even more so lately -- into doing his bidding.

Dad’s fingers bite and pinch against flesh and bone, leaving Two’s skin tinged pink and red with mottled bruising for later. Sometimes, he will stand in his bedroom with his shirt off and pretend that all the marks, blooming colours across his chest like Six’s new watercolour paints, are from a fight. With a bad guy. But Two can only pretend so much before the fantasy begins to _hurt._

Two doesn’t particularly like his new hair. He can understand the efficiency, and appreciates that Three can no longer grab handfuls of it while they’re fighting, but when Two would look in the mirror and see his reflection -- uniform, skin darker than half of the numbers’, tufts of inky hair defying gravity and poking out into the air like sharpened daggers -- he used to think that he liked how he looked. 

Now, his head is bare for wires, for stickers and suction and better aerodynamics in combat, and Two thinks he understands how that duckling might have felt, the one from the book that Mom used to read them. _Ugly_ may not be the right word, but what Two is distinctly aware of is that he doesn't look like any of the other numbers.

He looks bare and blank, and the other day in training when he managed to get the upper hand on his _brother,_ One told Two that he has a head shaped like a cantaloupe.

It took three of their siblings to separate them. 

Dad has more machines now, but they’ve somehow quietened in the effort it takes to run them. Reginald Hargreeves demands absolute silence during Two’s sessions, and sometimes that means Mom will have to leave. Which isn’t fair, at least in Two’s opinion, because she’s not making any _noise._

It’s _Two’s_ fault that he can’t stop crying for her when Dad sticks a tube down his throat and demands that Pogo strap him to a cot. 

The restraints burn and blister his skin, no matter where Two encounters them, even having replaced the weights in his bath suit. Now, at the bottom of the tank, there is a pair of chains, a lock on them that can only be opened remotely. Two should feel flattered, that Dad believes such things are absolutely necessary in containing him, but the flattery is so rapidly crushed by the pain and the overwhelming fear, that Two may as well have never felt it to begin with. 

It happens quicker now, when he slips into the bath. It doesn’t take all that long anymore for Two to become locked in the dark, in the strange cavern that exists somewhere within the recesses of his own mind. 

The woman isn’t always there. Sometimes, there are men. Other children. They sit in the darkness, the shallows of the ground, they speak to people that Two cannot see. Maybe they’re not alone. And though _none_ of these people see him, they cry and beg like they’re in need of anyone at all to help them. 

Four once told him that the ghosts do something like that -- they wail and beg and plead with Four to do something, anything, when he can’t even do so much as _touch_ them. But Two can’t see ghosts, right? Is Dad’s friend -- the sick lady in the bed -- dead? Two thinks that maybe, yes, she is. But Two also thinks that somehow she is still here. That she exists somewhere, like in a small room in the back of someone’s mind; a room that Two has the key for. 

He opens doors all over what Dad has now dubbed _t_ _he Void._ There are some he wishes he could lock up forever. There are people that he does not know (for Two knows very few people), but sometimes there’s Three in her bedroom, nagging One to play dollies, and Four insisting that he’s the best at playing dollies so she should let him. 

Or, other times, Five in the kitchen with Seven, getting her to count how many marshmallows he can fit into his big mouth without throwing up into the sink. 

Rarely, but enough to be worthy of notice, there is Six. Six in a place in his dreams, perhaps, that Two has never been. Where voices whisper and roar and Six whimpers under the cover of Mom’s homemade quilt. Two never gets too close; he knows not to touch. 

Sometimes these things happen during the day, when Three and Four could conceivably be playing dollies; sometimes they happen at night, when Two knows for certain that everyone is in bed. But what he knows with absolute certainty is that these are things that have _happened._

It’s why he knows about the bad men, and the people who hurt without remorse. He sees the pain and the bloodshed, the horrors of life outside the Umbrella Academy walls, and Two can do very little to stop it. 

When his eyes open, to the bright blue of the bath, now uncovered, blood floats like smoke across his vision before he can convey to Dad that he needs to come up now, because there are people that are dying -- or _worse_ \-- and they have powers, right? So, they _have_ to help them. 

After the first few times, Dad stops letting him come up between trips. 

“You are there to _observe,_ Number Two. Just as I observe you.” Dad says, once the cuffs around Two’s ankles have been released and he can swim to the top of the bath. 

The water runs rivers down Two’s face as Mom presses a fluffy towel under his chin. It’s cold in the basement, so the grazed flesh on his ankles stings almost as much as it did in the salted water of the bath. But Dad will only think he’s being a baby if he complains, so Two removes the towel and holds it at his side, as if he's impervious to all things, even the cold.

“Now, return to your bedroom at once and write of what you saw in your journal.” He dismisses, not even taking the time to comment on where Two is lacking, or where he might have improved. 

“I will be collecting your entries at the end of the week. I expect _detail,_ Number Two, seeing as you constantly fail to convey any necessary information with your inability to _speak._ ”

One told him before that Dad gets him to write in a journal too. Not that he’s ever told Two what it is that he writes, but One always insists that it’s important; that it’s so he can be the best leader. Two doesn’t like writing in his journal, but if One is doing it, then he must do it too. He doesn’t like to dwell much on how different it is; when Two’s entries are steeped in pain and injury and the infinite fear of the unknown that stretches far beyond the space allowed for him in the bath, and One’s entries are about the _stars._

By the time he returns to his room, Mom has parted ways with him so she won’t delay in making breakfast. He can tell, he _knows,_ she feels guilty about leaving him to warm himself up, but Two is getting bigger now, and he can easily make his way back to bed all by himself.

He’s drying off with the fluffy towel when he notices a writhing lump on his bed, buried under the sheets and quilt, black hair sticking up in all directions ( _oh,_ how jealous Two is). 

Two makes quick work of his bathing suit and changes into the pajamas that Mom left out for him before going down to the bath. They’re somehow still warm, and smell of lavender when he presses the cotton of the sleeve to his nose. 

“Four, are- are you oka- alright?”

“I’m _fantastic,_ yes.” His head pokes up from under the covers, eyes red rimmed and puffy, his hair still messy from where Two figures he was yanking at it -- Two doesn’t like it when Four does this, but it can be very difficult to make him stop. 

“Come here, Two. I’ve been keeping the bed warm. Well,” he snorts, “warm- _er_ . Mom has like three hot water bottles in here. Do you know what that’s called, _mein bruder?_ Favouritism.”

_Silly,_ he can’t help but think, _Mom doesn’t have favourites._ He’d like to tell Four as much. 

Wants to say, _she loves us all the same, idiot._

Or, _I’m sure she does nice things for you that she doesn’t do for me._

Or, _the ghosts have been keeping you up again, haven’t they?_

But he doesn’t comment on Four’s nightmares like he should, instead pulling the quilt back to crawl under the covers and get some warmth back into his bones. He tucks his feet against one of the hot water bottles, but Four’s feet are already resting on it. The other winces, as if Two gave off an electric shock.

“ _What-_ where have you been? _Antarctica?_ Goodness, Two, I thought Three was simply being _callous_ when she said you were made of ice.”

He can only laugh at that, in hopes that the topic is forgotten about in favour of other things. He does not want to talk to Four about where he goes at night, just as he knows Four does not want to talk about where he goes either. And besides, even if he _did_ want to, Two wouldn’t be able to string enough words together to explain. 

“Let me make you toastie, Two. I can be your personal furnace.”

They’re sat up in the bed now, backs to his cast iron headboard and comforter tucked up to their navels. While Four latches on, Two takes his prescribed reading from the drawer in his nightstand and attempts to take up where he left off the night before; because even though Dad told him to get started on his journal entry for tonight’s bath, it’s not like he can write about these things in front of Four, who will just ask the ghosts around them to read over Two’s shoulder if he tries to hold the journal out of his reach. 

Two ducks his head and pretends to read while Four reaches for him, having a tendency lately to grab Two’s skull at the strangest of times because he likes the _fuzzy feeling under his fingers._

And he doesn’t mind all that much. It is rare that any of the other numbers want to touch him. One only does so in combat, because any move now could make a fistfight out of an affectionate gesture. 

Three likes to grab him sometimes, makes him sit with her in the library during their reflection periods, takes him off for talks in her room that have One fuming. Two knows the real reason for this is nothing other than Three wanting someone who will listen and can’t talk back. 

Five doesn’t like to touch. Or, at least, he acts like it. Always has his hands stuffed into his pockets or his arms folded, or jumps through space far too fast for any of them to even get a hold of him. Not that Two even tries to outside of training, or when he’s attempting to tackle Five to the ground for cheating during their recreational time.

Six is cautious in how he holds, how he reaches for people and seeks out any form of affection. None of them find offense in it, because even Dad is struggling to fathom the origins of the creature that oftentimes peak out of Six’s stomach without warning. But, sometimes, Six will let Two hold his hand under their study desks; sometimes Six will let Two rub his back while he leans over the toilet with Horror induced nausea. Two wishes he could do more for his brother, but nothing ever seems to be enough. 

Seven used to like being close. She’d sit with them and play, and grasp at Two’s fingers while they tried to find a piece of furniture to lay under during hide and seek. She doesn’t do that anymore, Two doesn’t know why. But she plays and smiles with Five, still, so at the very least she is happy, even if she won’t play with Two and acts like he’s a bad guy when he gets into fights with the other numbers.

The general consensus among the other numbers is, however, that Two is cold. Just like Three says, day in and day out. He is aware of the fact, but he never thought it would come to be such a deterrent. 

“ _Hello,_ Two. Are you in there?” Four knocks on the top of his skull with a closed fist, whispering the words against his bare scalp.

Four is taller than Two, still. Likes to lean down to rub his cheek against the fuzz on Two’s head. It’s fine, he hardly ever minds, and sometimes Four’s fingers do a pretty good job of soothing the ache in his scalp after having so many wires attached. 

Four never thinks much of touch, and it’s nice. How he melts into any of them whenever he is permitted to. Smooth and easy, moving organically so as to not surprise the other numbers, all of which, including Two, are prone to jumping at any unannounced affection. Such as now: how his legs are thrown across Two’s lap as he leans into his side, faces smushed together while he helps Two whiz through his prescribed reading. 

“I don’t know why Dad makes you read this stuff.” Four turns the page. His fingers sparkle silver from the nail polish he stole off Three (that none of them are allowed to wear, but she took from Mom regardless; coveting it). “Every word is, like, _twice_ as long as it needs to be.”

“W-Wann, want to sw-wap?”

“No can do, _mon frère._ ” Four has been learning many languages because Dad thinks it will help him better understand the ghosts. Two doesn’t think that _understanding_ them is the problem. “I don’t think reading about ritualistic sacrifice from around the globe is your style. You should _totally_ ask Six, though. Dad’s making him read _Frankenstein_.”

Four is correct about that -- everyone’s personal reading is typically quite specific, chosen to enhance their powers, or their skills, in Seven’s case. Two’s can be a bit of a mixed bag, though, depending on where his father thinks he is lacking (read: in every department). 

“D-da-dad likes to g-get m-m-mad at m-me when- when I break the rules.” Two tries, doing his best not to get flustered around Four, because he’s almost certain Four does not _care._

For a moment, he slows down, and thinks about what he would like to say before it leaves his mouth. The others will mock him when he does this, Four sometimes included, or complain that it’s taking him too long to get a seemingly _redundant_ sentence out. And a large part of him aches with the reality of it: that they think whatever it is that he has to say is not important or interesting enough to be worthy of a little patience. 

“It’s fun-funny. B- _because,_ this whole chapter is about wh-what was wrong with _Legalism_ in China.” He says the word slowly, knowing it’s not even that big but not wanting to leave any room for error. 

“Maybe Dad likes it when you break the rules. Gets One all wound up. Or at least that’s what Five said.” Four shrugs, thumbing the pages again even though Two hasn’t finished his paragraph. “He never makes the rest of us fight like that. It used to be fun to watch, but me and Six stopped liking it after last week. You both made Three cry, then she got all moody and wouldn’t play dolls with me on Saturday.”

Two knows what incident Four is referring to from the week prior. But it’s not his fault that One is so much bigger. “Wh-what am I sup- ‘sposed to do? M-M-Mom says m-my growth spurt will- will be any da-day now, but…” Two shrugs his shoulders rather than attempt to finish the sentence; Four nods his head like he understands. 

“That’s your power, Twoots. How can Dad expect you not to use it? That’s like asking me to pretend there are no French lady ghosts in the kitchen. _C’est impossible!_ ” 

Then, as an afterthought, and because Four loathes negative energy: “We _know_ you didn’t mean to hurt him like that, Two. It was a total accident.”

Two would like to laugh at that, if only to loosen the grip that guilt has found with such ease in the space between his lungs (which he does have, by the way; Dad has checked repeatedly). Because there are rarely accidents when it comes to Two’s knives. He’s done his best, before, to claim that he hadn’t meant to aim at the stag’s head on the wall, or at Three’s feather pillows, or at Seven’s sheet music, when the leaves of paper got caught in a draught and the noise began to bother him. 

It’s all a lie, though. Unless external forces make their own changes, his trajectory is a fluid thing; that can be easily altered with little in the way of mental strain. 

Dad knows this, which is why, following the collision of Two’s favourite knife with One’s favourite punching hand, Two’s punishments came in the form of an extra night in the bath last week and humiliation from his father at any given moment. Mom tells Two not to worry about it, can’t brush his hair behind his ears anymore, so she settles for a sweet kiss to the tip of his nose. 

She says that One does not want to hurt him, that _boys will be boys_ and they ought to learn to get along, because brothers should not wish such harm unto one another. Mom speaks of things like _love_ and _family,_ calls One his _brother_ over and _over,_ and Two can’t quite grasp at what it all means, but he nods and smiles each time that she brings it up. Just like he’s doing with Four. Lying, so that the numbers -- his _brothers and sisters_ \-- won’t have yet _another_ reason to not want to touch him. 

“I can- can talk to Three, if you w-wa-want. So you c-can play d-d-dollies again.”

Four looks at him sideways, dark brow pinched up in doubt, but Two nudges it away and tries for a smile, hoping his face has regained some colour since leaving the bath. 

“Sh-She can- can rumour m-me if she do-does-doesn’t believe me.” A smirk then, like the pair of them, plus Five and Six, hadn’t taken to blocking their ears with stuffing from Mom’s sewing kit to stop Three from rumouring them. 

“Thanks, Two, love you.” Is the response he gets, blended with a laugh that shakes Four and runs through to his brother. 

It’s nice, how this feels, and Two can pretend it’s all okay when they are sat in bed and the soothing vibrato of Mom’s singing travels up from the kitchen, accompanied by the smell of breakfast. It’s nice when Five comes in to drag them from beneath the covers by their feet, with Seven hiding her smile behind the damp of her wash cloth. 

Even when Three follows suit, fingers fixing the pleats in her skirt, eyes refusing to meet his own, Two stands to greet her with an apologetic smile. His legs shake with the exhaustion and his pajama pants still drag along the floor, but his brown eyes still latch onto the mirror match of her own and Two strings out as best an apology as he can manage. 

He didn’t want to make her cry, so Three gets an apology this time around. One, who is no doubt early for their morning briefing, scolding his siblings for being late, shouldn’t hold his breath. 

  
Because Two holds his breath when he looks into the _Void;_ he holds his breath when he throws his knives. And there isn’t a single instance where Two ever misses.


	5. wireless.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He lifts a hand to wipe a sleeve against the wet of his mouth, the cold of his nose, and the soft material becomes inked with a deep red, that spreads and leaks through to the skin of his wrist. 
> 
> He thinks of his siblings, then, that maybe they are in bed. That they have been all night. He wonders if they missed him at dinner time. 
> 
> It is likely that they did not, but Diego whispers all of their names into the black of his room, regardless. Practising, while the blood from his nose pools on the pillow before him. 

Mom gives them their names when they hit double digits. 

_Diego._ That’s his. He moves his mouth around the sounds of it each night before bed. Before the bath. Before he has to fight for a place at the sink in the mornings. Three syllables in one, short word. A challenge, a mountain to climb for the mere sake of identifying himself to others. 

One of his _trigger letters,_ Five (who remains Five for some reason beyond anyone’s understanding) tells him. Calls it _unfortunate_ over the lip of his breakfast bowl, calls it a glitch in Mom’s programming; that she would fail to notice how giving Number Two this name might become a problem. 

And he -- Two, Diego -- was so looking forward to his naming, perhaps more than any of them (even Three, who had written a list of names she thought Mom might choose and had been practising how she might scrawl them were she to have to sign something). He was looking forward to the distinction, to not being forever reminded of the fact that he is considered to be in perpetual possession of the role of second best in a household where he is most judged for it. 

Diego is frustrated with Mom, but he would rather not hurt her feelings by saying so. She explained to them, at breakfast on the morning of their tenth birthday, that she had taken great care in choosing these names, that she had picked their names with each of their birthplaces in mind, and had done extensive etymological research. 

As far as he can gather, the others adore their names. Four- _Klaus,_ in particular, making a sing-song out of his as he bounces down the staircase in the morning, correcting anyone who might not say it with the correct inflection. Allison, scrawling hers across every available surface to the point that she has been offering to use her siblings’ own skin as a canvas; as though her new name is some kind of stylish accessory. 

He practises all of them in front of the mirror and cannot help the gratitude that floods him at _Luther_ being the easiest to say -- he cannot afford himself that kind of embarrassment in front of Number One. 

_Allison_ is accompanied by the same obstacles as his own name. A three syllable thing with far too many vowels and consonants to move his mouth around. And if not for the fact that Six had asked that his name be shortened to _Ben,_ Diego would have struggled with Benjamin similarly.

Beyond that, a three letter word shouldn’t be so hard to say, but it is. Just like SIix was a challenge, _Ben_ is a word that bounces uncomfortably between his lips and struggles on its way out. Each time that Diego has tried to say it since their naming has had his brother smiling apologetically at his best efforts. 

“You don’t have to say my name every time you address me.” Ben says, fingers smudging the beginnings of a drawing that’s reminiscent of a dream he’s had. His brother has not told him this, but Diego knows this one; he has seen it, warped and insidious and evil, many times in the _Void._

“Bu-but I w-w-want to get it ri-right, B-Be-Beh- _ugh._ ” 

Diego crosses his arms, with little care for how childish he might appear to the others. Five’s eyes roll quite blatantly, feet kicked up and over the narrow arms of the Queen Anne as he shoves his face further into a book. Fou- Klaus pounces on this struggle as though it is now a fun competition. He bounds towards them, the tie of his uniform dragged loose and messy around his neck as he lands on the settee between Diego and Ben. 

“Do me next! My name is _so_ much more exciting than boring, old _Ben._ ” And Diego all but recoils at the ease with which Klaus says it. How he’s been swanning about the drawing room all evening in their intended reflection time, throwing words left, right, and centre like this whole process is just a fun and brand new game. 

_Your hair is looking particularly straight today, Vanya._

_Would you carry this for me, Luther? Dad’s Qur’an is dreadfully heavy._

_Why won’t you let me give you a nickname, Fivey-- ow!_

Diego thought before that Four got it, that he didn’t care so much about how Diego tended to trip over words like they were objects in his way. He thought Six’s prior admonishment of him had put an end to all of this. It turns out that Klaus doesn’t care -- he doesn’t care so much that it’s brought him to the point of inconsideracy; such a level of it, in fact, that Diego bristles with it. 

He stands, forgotten reading falling from his lap, and shoves Number Four sideways and off the settee. Klaus careens to the floor with a resounding _thud,_ his blazer having fallen from one shoulder, his tie even looser now. 

“Shut _up,_ Kl-Klau-Klau-- _Cloud!_ ” And for the briefest of moments, Diego sources some blip of pride from the fact that he had somewhat managed to make his way through the sentence without getting caught on every word. But that pride is quickly crushed under foot of his siblings’ laughter at the mistake he is only now realising; though two of his siblings remain evidently unimpressed by the entire display: Ben and Vanya, one blatantly disgusted and the other timidly shocked by their siblings’ tactless behaviour. 

“Cloud! That’s so _cute,_ Twoots.” Klaus rolls in his position on the floor, hands clutching his stomach as he curls around his laughter, hiccuping between breaths. 

Ben gives Klaus a swift nudge with his foot, as though to quieten their brother and perhaps de-escalate the situation before it hits critical level, but Diego feels the betrayal well up like water inside him, and he’s afraid of what might spill out if he opens his mouth. 

Instead, he chooses the thing that he has optimal control of, and lands with his knees either side of Number Four to swing hits that land without interruption. Number Four may be taller for now, but Two is faster, stronger, he _has_ to be. There’s never been any room for error, he’s never allowed himself the luxury of slacking in training, and it’s paying off as his fist catches Four in an uppercut that has his bottom lip bursting crimson all over Dad’s Persian rug. 

There are limbs dragging at him then, Three’s pointed nails claw through the cotton of his shirt as she does her absolute best to yank him back. One must intervene, because Diego feels someone grab him from under his armpits before he is removed from Four; who rears up onto his haunches and spits a glob of blood onto the carpet. 

“Don’t be such a _baby,_ Two.” He yells, the stretch of his mouth causing more blood to well up and catch on his wrinkled shirt. “You’re so sensitive _all the time,_ and I didn’t even mean it like that.”

Diego’s chest heaves with the effort to take a breath. He has to remind himself that he does not need to, nor does he need this -- the way they look at him, as though they know he has nothing to say in response to Klaus because there’s nothing he _can_ say. To right his stance, he rips himself from Luther’s grasp, and resists the urge to retort with:

_I’m not a baby._

_I’m not sensitive._

_I hate you._

But surely these words together would mean more if it were possible for him to say them without stuttering. Maybe if he could utter them without worry about a snicker from Three or a diagnosis from Five, Diego would be able to say what he wants to say, when he wants to say it. 

None of that is possible when the words refuse to land where he throws them.

It ends up being of no matter, and he is saved from having to respond by a slight cough that sounds from between the large wooden doors. His father stands, monocle pinched in an unimpressed squint, and Diego can feel all of his siblings straighten in their positions. 

Luther’s hand falls back onto his shoulder, as though he is Number One who must, once again, rein in another of Two’s temper tantrums, but Diego shrugs him off even more violently this time and turns to face his father head on. 

“Number Two, do you recall nothing of your combat training? Bested by Number Four? What a _paltry_ display.” And Diego wilts, sensitive as his brother described him. With the feelings that well up on the inside, he is fit to cry. Except doing so would prove each of them correct, and he possesses little in the way of defending himself -- not that he would dare to do so against the threat of his father. 

“Follow me at once, Number Two. Your punishment awaits.”

The others fall back, eyes downcast and glued to their polished shoes. Klaus does not move from where he is now sitting on the floor, but Ben reaches to squeeze Diego’s hand, as though he is the one responsible for getting him in trouble. 

“ _Quickly,_ Number Two.” 

Diego parts from his siblings, for that’s what they are, and leaves them to gossip and fret and be thankful that it is not one of them being taken away for punishment this time. 

His fingernails cut crescent into his palms as he follows his father, his breath locking itself in the vault of his chest all the way _down, down, down_ to the basement, where he is made to rid of his clothing, and his shoes and socks, and slip into the bath in his underwear; the ice cold water shocking him from his daze before the bath’s cover snaps shut and plunges him into absolute darkness. 

The red flicker of the camera flashes from the corner, the machines hum monotonously, but all of that is lost once the _Void_ absorbs him. He floats, prone in the abyss, and the urge to cry has still not left him. 

All upset towards his mother forgotten, Diego longs for her. His fingers claw at where the glass ought to be, but they pass through the absence of air and fall back to his sides with each attempt. The pitch black stretches out before him and there is no one, not Mom or his siblings or even Dad, who is merely a few metres away from him despite feeling like a million miles. 

For all of this, he cannot help the sobs that squeeze like pincers and burn holes between his ribs. When he relents, and the crying comes, it is with a lung full of a foreign body and it is enough to frighten him into thinking that he is well and truly drowning. 

Two does not remember being pulled from the water, only the black and how it never ends.

When he wakes, it is to the dusty ceiling of his bedroom. He is dry now, dressed in his pajamas with the quilt tucked all the way up to his chin. His tongue is wet, with the taste of copper, and the sun is leaking in through the lines in his window enough for him to know that it is on its way towards rising. 

He lifts a hand to wipe a sleeve against the wet of his mouth, the cold of his nose, and the soft material becomes inked with a deep red, that spreads and leaks through to the skin of his wrist. 

He thinks of his siblings, then, that maybe they are in bed. That they have been all night. He wonders if they missed him at dinner time. 

It is likely that they did not, but Diego whispers all of their names into the black of his room, regardless. Practising, while the blood from his nose pools on the pillow before him. 

-:-

Dinner the following evening is confit of duck leg with puy lentils cassoulet, red cabbage purée, and wilted spinach. It is accompanied by Herr Carlson, playing on the surround sound despite the fact that the numbers have yet to be seated and their father has yet to arrive. 

Diego is dead on his feet, eyes drooping, his form swaying on the spot as he struggles to remain standing. Their father is taking too long and Diego would very much like to get this dinner over with, so he can head straight up to bed under the guise of filling his journal and instead sleep through until tomorrow morning. 

He can’t recall a single moment of the night before, nothing past his encounter with Klaus that has had the other giving him the silent treatment all day. Because of this, Allison is ignoring him, the pair having some weird kind of solidarity lately, which means Luther hasn’t spoken to him all day either, except to tell Diego to keep his cool for the sake of the _team._ And yet, he cannot find it in himself to care, not when he’s felt lightheaded since breakfast and hasn’t been able to focus on anything for more than a few minutes. 

There is no sign of Dad, but Diego is not the only one growing impatient. Next to him, Five seethes, as he has tended towards lately. Can’t fathom why Dad is still insisting they train day in and day out, when they could be out doing something about the state of the world. They’re not ready yet, is what Dad says, but the numbers can’t help their curiosity, particularly when the only times they have set foot outside the Academy have been for educational field trips. 

In a flash of blue, Five vanishes, and Diego barely blinks. Vanya flinches, however, as though she had feared exactly this, and casts her eyes wildly around the room to see where it is that Five has gone. The answer is told to them by the sound of static that cuts Herr Carlson off, a bizarre white noise akin to that of what the wireless makes when they are unable to tune it right or pick up any stations. 

Diego keels forward, unable to stand much longer. His forearms slope across the high back of his chair as Klaus releases a stream of giggles at Five’s rebellion, Luther demands that he cut it out, and Vanya calls for Five only for him to return to his stance behind his seat in what Diego imagines must have been a blue flash, for he is no longer looking. 

“That’s better.” Five says in that smug way of his, like he’s done them all such a great favour, when it is more likely that Dad will elect to punish all of them for this disruption. 

Diego doesn’t so much decide that he ought to take advantage of this free time, as his body decides for him. His eyelids snap together like magnets and he takes a moment to relish in what little rest he is gaining from falling asleep standing up. Dad must have come in, he must have yelled at them, because when Diego opens his eyes, his siblings are taking their seats at the table with the appearances of children who have just been severely reprimanded by their father. 

He rushes to follow, his chair scraping against the hardwood floors and jolting him sharply from the woozy feeling that his exhaustion had blanketed him in. When he sits, Klaus across from him and Luther and Five either side, Dad is lamenting about their appalling behaviour or lack of common courtesy, or whatever, but Diego isn’t listening. 

The recording hasn’t been righted, maybe Dad has sent Pogo to fix it, but in the wide and open space of the dining room, it is all that Diego can hear. A continuous reverberation that worms its way inside his head and drowns out even Five, whose typically grating voice is yelling something or other at their father. 

Dad is pointedly ignoring Five’s efforts, a newspaper raised to cover all but his eyes and monocle as he glances through the pages. On the front, there is an image of a man, bedraggled and dead looking in the black and white print, holding a sign to his chest with a series of numbers printed on it, and it is all that Diego sees between weighted blinks. 

He sees the man on the front page and when he blinks, he and the man are alone in a room together. When he opens his eyes again, it is Klaus staring at him from across the table, a funny look on his face accompanied by some purple purée on his chin. Diego blinks again, for longer this time, as though he truly might fall asleep right at the dinner table, punishment be damned. But when he opens his eyes he is not at the dinner table, no, he is in the _Void._

The _Void_ in the middle of the evening, with no water around him, no machine hum, merely the sound of static from Five butchering Herr Carlson’s survival tips. 

For one terrifying, awful moment, Diego thinks that maybe he is still in the bath, that he’s been there since last night, and that he’s made the entire day up inside one of the rooms in his mind. But he’s never seen this man before, not in the _Void_ and not in Real Life. This man with limp hair and clammy skin who is staring straight ahead, as though he is entirely alone and unseen. But Diego sees. He sees how the man is hunched over a lump on the ground, a lump soaked in blood, with skin a shocking white. And he’d like to scream, for help, for the sight of it alone, but no sound comes out, as if he’s entirely submerged in the bath all over again. 

He must be there, that is the only logical explanation, but this thought is cut short at the feeling of being violently shaken, of slamming out of the _Void_ and into what he hopes to be the real, waking world. 

And there Klaus is, across from him, gesturing vaguely to his mouth and nose, though Diego cannot begin to fathom what that means. The iron grip, as it turns out, is not from Luther but from Five, and Diego does his best to ground himself in it, as maybe it will cease his shaking. 

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” Five says in a severe whisper. 

The evening light that casts across the room is far too bright for Diego to register the full scene surrounding him, and his tongue is leaden with something thick and congealed. He does not dare speak. 

He looks down, his neck aching with the sudden weight of his head, and spots it then: the puddle of blood that has gathered at the zip of his shorts, the river of it that runs a heavy stream down the wool of his jumper. 

He grabs his napkin, a naive attempt to cover the mess, so that maybe Dad will not see, because he needs to sleep and if Dad sees, the night will be spent running tests that Diego does not have the energy for. 

But it’s futile, his face is wet with it and his nostrils are burning like he’s accidentally inhaled too much of the salt water. Luther leans forward in his seat, maybe thinking he will conceal the bloody scene, and bizarrely, Five is using his and Vanya’s napkins to stem the flow. It is a tender gesture for Five, Diego thinks, one that is out of character, at least with regards to how he typically treats every boy who isn’t Ben. 

They think they’re being so smart, the three of them, Vanya their anxious accomplice. But of course Dad has seen it all, as he sees all around the house. If not for his ability to notice every little thing, Klaus’ wide eyes and Allison’s disgusted face would have been a dead giveaway. 

Ben stands to toss his napkin across to Five and, stupidly, Diego wipes the blood from his mouth with the sleeve of his Academy blazer, now ruined along with the rest of his clothing. But still, their father only watches, his gaze sharp and calculating, meeting Diego’s own as the other numbers scramble about him as if he is an invalid, Klaus removing his own blazer to soak up the mess before Allison stops him with a slap to the wrist. 

“ _Gross,_ Four. Blood is super hard to wash out.”

Klaus’ long arms retreat, but he at least shoots Diego an apologetic smile, like he hasn’t spent the entire day spiting him for something that was his own fault in the first place. 

“Children, I think that is quite enough.” Dad looks away, disinterested, his gaze falling to the paper once more, but this time on the front cover specifically. 

Diego does his best not to look, lest he trigger whatever that was all over again. The static has long ceased, but Herr Carlson is not playing. The silence is deafening enough, and each of them fidgets with the discomfort of it. 

“Grace, you will take Number Two to the infirmary immediately. The rest of you, finish your meals and then you may retire for the evening.”

Diego stands, eager to be embraced by Mom, to be shuffled away and into the quiet of the infirmary where none of his siblings can witness the embarrassment of how deep his fear runs. She beckons to him, a sweet smile on her face, wide and vacant, as though nothing at all is wrong and even if there is, she will make it all better _in a jiff._

As he makes his way towards the archway, Ben gulps audibly, and it is only then that Diego notices how the colour has drained from his brother’s face. 

“B-Beh-Ben?” He pauses, despite his mother’s coaxing nudge towards the hallway. 

“You should, uh- ” Ben clutches at his stomach, looking entirely like he might heave up what little dinner he’s eaten. “I can’t, there’s too much. Dad, may I be excused?”

He shouldn’t be glad for it, the way Dad’s eyes fall onto Ben and deviate from him, but the relief vanishes at the look of disgust that flashes across their father’s face and, in that moment, Diego hates him more than ever. 

“You are excused, Number Six. Do lock your bedroom door.” 

Ben nods, rushing ahead of Diego and Mom and dashing his way up the stairs. 

The pace that he and Mom adopt is much slower, one that eases the feeling of falling over that overcomes him every few steps. The blood from his shirt drips drops onto the floor, like he’s leaving clues to be found along the way, and he’s suddenly so sorry for all of it. How Ben’s Horrors must be hurting him, how he’s messed up Mom’s polished floors and his uniform, how he hasn’t heard the telltale clink of cutlery from the others, meaning they have yet to continue eating. 

“I’m so-sorry, M-Mo-Mom.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, sweetie.” She coos, her arm around his shoulder as she guides him up the staircase. “I have just the thing to clean this all _right_ up.”

He’s sorry for more than the disgusting mess, but he can’t say that, not when he feels so weak. He would like to tell her most of all to check on Ben, to make sure he’s okay and not too scared. The Horror can be unpredictable, and maybe such a volume of blood at a time when Ben himself was hungry caused some kind of strange reaction from them. Regardless, Diego feels guilt heat him from the belly up, the pool of it beginning where the blood has gathered on his sweater. 

Rest feels close, however, like he might achieve some sleep tonight, some reprieve from the whirlpool of feelings that are swirling around inside of him. He feels it in his bones, how they melt into the frame of his mother, how he knows the _Void_ will not find him again, that this time was merely a freak occurrence. 

But Dad, he does not seem to think so. Just when Diego feels as if this might be an escapable punishment, his father’s voice sounds from the base of the staircase, barking orders back towards the dining room. 

“Pogo will ensure that you finish your meals, children. I expect each plate to be cleaned. There will be no exceptions.”

The announcement is followed by the sound of his father’s slow and deliberate steps ascending the stairs, following their path towards the infirmary. 

Once more, Diego is fit to cry, but it is not appropriate, not now. His exhaustion has seeped so deep into his bones that he can hardly talk, let alone fight back when his father drags him towards the infirmary wing at a far more brisk pace. His legs cannot keep up and Mom does her best to support him, but it’s of no matter, because Dad has been struck with a sudden and frightening kind of determination, one that has Diego shaking far more than when Five initially ripped him from the _Void_. 

“Grace, ready the scanners. Do have sedatives at the ready; you know how he gets.”

“Yes, Sir Hargreeves, of course.” 

Mom smiles at Dad and beams at Diego, like it really will be entirely okay. Like she has any control over that. Diego does as he’s told and strips of his bloody clothes, and when the machines and the tests begin, he prays for the infinite blackness of the _Void._

It does not come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this in a few hours, honestly not intending to give you an update so soon, so here it is ig! 
> 
> though i don't agree with the grace's sentiment, this chapter is very much "boys will be boys" or "klaus and diego will be klaus and diego, and everyone else is just along for the ride" (including me, as i never meant for them to have this fight in the first place). 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thanks so much for those who commented! your questions really got me thinking and definitely lent some inspiration to this chapter! the plot is finally starting to unfold a little, so do let me know what you think if you have the time! thanks again 💖


	6. robbers.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The knives are far too sharp to be used against his siblings. This was not what he agreed to when he accepted the gift, though he had little choice in the matter. But Dad is right: he needs to practise on live targets. 
> 
> That doesn’t mean he has to do it well.

“A disappointing display. Does the Umbrella Academy expect that the enemies’ bullets will move slower than Number Two’s knives?”

Another yelp sounds from Klaus as he gets clipped by one of the projectiles, and Diego does not dare look. Number Four has the distinct disadvantage of being the most easily distracted of his siblings, also the slowest, though none of them bar Luther would ever say that. 

It’s frustrating, because Diego is doing his absolute best to avoid hitting Klaus most of all, despite the fact that Dad explicitly told him that holding back in the slightest would result in a punishment. Klaus is making it difficult not to, because Diego’s body does not like to miss. His being follows the strings as they map themselves out before his eyes, and when he throws, there is little chance that the knives will not land exactly where he wants them. If Klaus was that bit faster, like Allison, like Five, there would be no problem. 

Luther isn’t much better, though Diego will claim that it is because Luther is _bigger,_ and therefore easier to hit. Dad won’t mind; Dad wants Diego to hit his targets with the same strength that he wishes for the other numbers to dodge his attempts. Regardless of the outcome, one group must lose, and Diego is entirely alone in his. At least if he fails, he is the only one getting hurt. 

“Over here!” Five taunts and Diego fires one of his knives, which obviously misses, as Five vanishes in a pulse of blue. He reappears on the other side of the room, and Diego throws another. When Five uses his powers and Diego misses again, the knife flies past Ben and grazes the back of his hand, releasing a spurt of blood that has even Five looking a little sheepish. 

“Sorry, B-Be-- ”

“Yeah, sorry Ben!”

“Number Two!” Dad yells, pausing in his observations and note taking to turn his focus towards Diego. Beside him, Vanya has yet to press the button at the top of the stopwatch. This is going to affect his overall time. 

“Will you offer your enemies your condolences in the battlefield? One would hope not! It is a blatant display of weakness.” Diego does not respond, for it would only worsen the situation and humiliate him further. 

Sometimes, when they’re playing games and they’re split into teams of good guys and bad guys, Luther will weave these witty one liners and comebacks, boasting of besting his nemeses and shaming them for their failures. Five, who typically takes up the role of bad guy with Klaus at his side, parrots them back with equal power, and the pair enter a duel of words as well as physical strength. 

When Diego speaks, it is a watery, pathetic thing. Even Diego (quite literally)  _ breathing  _ is seen as a weakness. 

“In fact, it is best that you do not address them at all; leave the talking to Number One, since you make such an  _ ordeal  _ of it.”

Dad’s been getting more and more intolerant lately; of Diego’s throwing, of his time in the bath, but most of all how he articulates himself and how long it takes him to merely string a small sentence together.

No one really knows the cause of it, why it is that Diego struggles to say the simplest of things. The other numbers avoid it, like they avoid looking at Ben’s stomach and grow stiff in the shoulders when Klaus begins talking to thin air. They’ve never met someone like that and Dad acts as though Diego is the only person in the world with this problem, as though he is  _ wrong  _ and disappointing and not at all what he would expect from someone who begs so desperately to be Number One. 

Perhaps all of this frustration, on Dad’s part, is due to Diego’s inability to hit his siblings with his knives, or his evident unwillingness to hurt them when he would much rather practise on moving targets. It feels senseless, and unfair, and Diego can’t help but question whether Dad actually wants them to hurt; wants them to suffer for their shortcomings. 

Perhaps it is because, lately, in the new form of training that Dad and Pogo have devised for outside the bath, Diego isn’t doing too well. 

It’s not that he misses being trapped in the water and having to hold his breath in the dark for hours on end, not in the slightest. But it’s easier there, to do what Dad wants. It’s quiet and barren and when Diego sits in the water long enough he can empty his mind of absolutely everything and focus exactly like Dad wants him to. 

But this new method, in Dad’s office with the wireless playing pure static and a blindfold obscuring his vision, Diego can’t void his mind of all the noises and movements that surround. There is entirely too much going on and, thus far, he hasn’t found much worth mentioning in his journal entries.

It’s becoming quite pressing, actually, because Dad says that soon they will be making their debut to the world as the Umbrella Academy, and if he wants to contribute to the team at all, he must find these men in these pictures that he’s never met before in his life. 

His nose bleeds almost all the time now. And when it’s not that, it’s another part of his body splitting open with a hit from Luther, a rumour from Allison, a sneak attack from Five, or even one of his new knives. There’s a whole case of them, made  _ especially  _ for him, Dad says, he must polish and sharpen them regularly, and keep them far out of the hands of his siblings;  _ particularly  _ Five, who has a tendency to take things that are not his own. 

Diego is using the knives today, just a few of them. Because Dad says he needs practise with them, and the others need to increase their stealth and stamina if they have any hopes of evading the attacks of criminals. 

(In the most private parts of his mind, Diego likes to think, to  _ hope, _ that the reason he too is not running from an onslaught of projectiles is because Dad thinks he’s already fast enough. Maybe he doesn’t need it. Luther is big and slow and Five relies entirely on his powers for speed, but Diego is fast regardless of all that. He is quick and ruthless and exerts little breath in doing anything. Yes, he does have a distinct advantage in that department, but the other numbers know nothing of his secondary power, and what they don’t know will not hurt them). 

The knives are far too sharp to be used against his siblings. This was not what he agreed to when he accepted the gift, though he had little choice in the matter. But Dad is right: he needs to practise on  _ live  _ targets. 

That doesn’t mean he has to do it well.

When Diego throws again, this time a beeline for Allison, he misses. 

He knew he would miss. Because he knew she would dart to the left and towards Luther, but mostly he knew because he never had any intention of hitting his sister, not when giving Dad what he ultimately wanted from his mediocre Number Two involved stitches in his siblings and an afternoon in the infirmary with Mom. 

“Your gift has been revoked, Number Two.” Dad says, nodding at Vanya to finish keeping time, and folding his notebook away with a display of blatant irritation. “Return the case to my office after supper.”

“Yes, s-sir.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Allison says as she hands him the knife he pretended to aim at her.

“Do wh-wh-what?”

“Miss on purpose, obviously. I’m  _ way  _ faster than the rest of you, you just hate to admit it.”

Diego shrugs, slotting each of the knives into his pockets to be returned to his case later. “Don-Don’t know wh-what you're-talking about All-Alli-- ”

“Whatever.” She checks him with her hip, clearly doing her best not to match the smile that he’s shooting her way. “Just don’t do it again.”

When their father dismisses them and reminds Klaus of his individual training later in the evening, Diego manages to nab Ben before he can follow the others out the door. 

He takes Six’s hand and turns it over in his own, carefully, delicately, just like Mom does. 

“D-Does it hurt?”

“Nah, not too bad. My stomach didn’t even stir.”

“Oh, go-good. Let’s g-go to the infir-in- _ infirmary,  _ yeah?”

“It’s just a scratch, Diego.” Ben takes his hand back, tucking it up into his sleeve as if the blood won’t stain. “And besides, you didn’t care this much when you sliced a whole inch through Luther’s finger last week.”

Ben is smiling, but Diego knows the teasing is hiding something more. He doesn’t enjoy hurting his siblings, just like he’s sure Luther doesn’t enjoy breaking their bones (accident or not) and Allison doesn’t enjoy rumouring them to do awful things (though he can’t be 100% certain on that front). But it’s not like they have much of a choice. Ben is lucky, despite what he may think, that Dad’s never asked him to inflict the Horror upon them before. He has  _ no  _ idea what he’s talking about. 

“Luther’s got m-mo-more res-resil--  _ ugh.  _ He’s s-stronger than the re-rest of us. N-Never lets us for-f-forget it either.”

They make their way down the corridor, the echo of the others’ chatting long lost to the cavern of their house. Diego bumps against Ben’s side, like there’s a kind of camaraderie there, like Ben doesn’t have all these deep-set morals that Diego crosses on a daily basis. It’s not like he wishes for his brother to be disappointed in him, but it’s clear that he is. 

“Keep telling yourself it’s that simple, Diego. You could kill him if you miss.”

“I ne-ne-never mi-miss.” Diego frowns, offended that Ben would think otherwise.

“Huh.” Ben spins around to walk backwards, facing Diego with a grin before breaking off into a jog, injured hand waving around in the air. “What’s this then?”

-:-

“ _ Location, _ Number Two.”

The blindfold is far too loose and no matter how tightly Diego pinches his eyes shut, a fraction of light from Dad’s study window always manages to leak in. 

It’s early evening, which is a welcome change from his typical training times, and he and Dad are sat in the study; Pogo is busy elsewhere, giving lessons to the other numbers in something that Diego can apparently afford to miss. 

The wool of his vest is far too heavy, pressing the linen of his shirt flat to his chest and causing him to sweat. Dad refuses to open the window, saying it will disrupt Diego’s training, will bring noise pollution into the room. Which makes no sense, because Dad has contributed nothing but noise for the last ten minutes. 

_ What do you see? _

_ Who is there? _

_ Are the men in the image present? _

Diego wonders the same thing, grasping at anything he can think of to give Dad what he wants. But nothing works. 

The men are like smoke between his fingers, dissolving into thin air any time Diego gets too close. 

There are too many. The place they are is not a solid thing, it moves like liquid and changes so gradually that it’s becoming hard for him to tell what has been altered in the first place. 

There are people, ones from the picture, ones that are not, and there are voices that Diego cannot easily distinguish, not when Dad keeps poking at him over being faster, stronger,  _ Number One’s nose surely wouldn’t bleed so much. _

“I can’t con-concentrate w-w-w-with you talking.” 

Diego pulls the cover from his eyes, thus ripping himself from the bizarre half-Void he had found himself floating in. The static carries on, but means nothing when his thoughts are so caught up on the words that his father keeps spitting. Criticism may improve his ability to curve the objects that he throws, but it is nothing but a hindrance to his abilities in the Void. 

His father stares, entirely blank, and Diego remembers his manners before tacking on a useless “S-sir.” 

Dad does little in the way of responding before letting a small, irritated puff of air escape his nostrils. He does not look at Diego so much as look  _ through  _ him, like always, before stepping around the desk and beyond the chair Diego is sat in to kneel down on the floor and peel back the corner of the carpet. 

Diego’s seen Dad on the floor maybe twice, including this time. The other was when they were in a mission simulation and one of Ben’s tentacles swiped hard at the shrill noise of Dad’s whistle. That had been a strange day, and the tentacles weren’t permitted in training after it, but none of them had ever seen Dad get flustered like that; not even when Allison tried to rumour him into letting her skip out on training when she first got her period. 

Now, he merely appears irritated; knelt on the floor and fiddling with a catch of some sort that must have been concealed by the rug. When he pops and opens it, it is to reveal a trap door of sorts, and when Diego leaves his seat and makes his way over to stand at his father’s back, it is to see a tight and shallow space; long as he is tall, narrow as he is wide. 

It makes sense, he cannot deny that fact, but surely the bath is preferable to this. It’s not that Diego enjoys the bath, but when his nose bleeds and his senses are assaulted with the iron tang of irrepressible fear, at least he can’t taste it so much there. 

Here, where he is stood by his father, paper tissue pressed to the tip of his nose, he knows what must be done and he knows how little he will like it. 

Diego is not claustrophobic, not like Klaus -- who can hardly handle a journey in an elevator -- because the Void does not allow for that kind of feeling, but that doesn’t mean he will enjoy this. 

Dad stands and directs Diego to take his place. He slots his lanky and growing frame into the space beneath the floorboards and ignores the plumes of dusts that puff upwards at his disturbance. When he extends his legs, the backs of his knees make contact with the splintered surface and the cotton of his socks catch on the roughened planks. 

It is unclear what this space was intended for; maybe for this. Or maybe it is a hiding spot for Dad, if something bad happens -- as Dad always seems to think it will -- and he has nowhere to go.

The blood in his nose rushes unpleasantly backwards as he is urged to lay flat by a hand to the chest; not tender, not gentle, never gentle. Diego grips the tissue with one hand and fists the picture of the three men with the other. Dad places the wireless radio in the space next to his head and above him, the panel begins to shut. 

“I expect a full report, Number Two. I have wasted enough time in facilitating your whims. You will do this right, or it is straight to the bath with no supper!”

Then it is dark and blank and absolutely  _ nothing.  _ And Dad must have covered the floorboards with the rug again because not even a sliver of light leaks through and into his vision. 

It is hot here, unlike the bath. Hotter than the study and entirely too stifling, the hum of the radio’s static sending his limbs, all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes, into a kind of sensory glitch. Like how Mom will sometimes halt in her movements, only to backtrack a fraction and start the action all over again. 

His legs kick. It’s involuntary, because he does not wish to do anything that would cause his father more irritation. It is frightening, in this space, where the water does not cushion the feelings that threaten to override and overwhelm. Where the blood sticks and lingers and soaks into his clothing, because it can’t float before him and become diluted in thin air. 

It’s heavy when he swallows, a glob of blood that slides down his throat only to be replaced by another dribble from his nose. It is the only thing he can truly feel now, the heat of it where it sits on him. Besides that, and the picture clutched in his fingertips, Diego is numb to much else and the static of the radio only proves to push him further into the swell of darkness that Dad has moulded in mere moments. 

There are strings, like always, that Diego follows to get to where he needs to go. Sometimes there are people at the other end, or on the way, sometimes there are things. He can’t bend their direction like he does with his knives, these strings have their own trajectory in mind and are merely taking Diego along for the ride. 

He has no choice but to follow. 

The Void is quite full, if a space with infinite bounds can be full. It is the men that fill it, this is where Diego finds them. 

What he sees is not nice and it’s not pretty, and at that tender age where he is on the brink of childhood and adolescence, it is quite formative. He would like very much to close his eyes, but whether it is the will of his father or the wish of the Void, Diego is not able to. 

The picture has vanished from his fingers, as it is rare that he can bring things with him to this place. But he does not need it, because the men who were captured in the image stand before him, suspended, in the Void. Just like he is. 

Trapped, perhaps, he never dares to think too much about it. 

They’re yelling amidst the awful acts, at each other, at the women around them, who look bedraggled and unkempt and absolutely exhausted; nothing like Mom. There are guns, some like the kind that Dad has Diego train with when he wants to test the limits of his curving abilities -- he does not make Diego aim  _ these  _ missiles at his siblings. 

But he mustn’t get distracted. The men do not know he is here. They believe they’re in a house of some sort. Whatever walls that surround them cannot be seen by Diego, nothing but the vast expanse of the Void is visible to him, the picture interrupted by a dozen or so figures and a ratty, old sofa that looks as though it’s seen better days. 

So it’s hard to obtain information on their location like Dad wants. There’s no sign of anything that stands out, no windows or pictures or voices on the television like Diego heard when Dad made him look for an old lady in the Void who ended up living only a few blocks away. 

There are the girls, and the couch, and the blood on the floor (and the body that sits in it). And the men. Three of them, with their guns and yelling and hurting and Diego does not wish to see it but he has to anyway. 

He follows the strings and he doesn’t understand. Diego listens to what the men say and looks at the papers they point to. 

The puddle of blood on the floor soaks his bare feet -- the Void does not allow shoes or socks, either -- as he peers over the shoulder of one of the men. Or tries to -- he is quite tall.

The women sway to a song that Diego cannot hear and they puff on these tiny sticks that look nothing like Dad’s cigars but smell somewhat similar. 

The men talk of money and one of them, the smallest one this time, yells at the tallest and waves his gun about like it’s a new toy that he’s showing off. 

_ Tomorrow, _ he yells. _ It’s gotta be tomorrow! _

Tomorrow is Tuesday, Diego thinks. Despite the occasional confusion about when his visions in the Void are set, he knows that this one is in the present.  _ Now Memories, _ that’s what he calls them in his journal entries. Dad’s never questions the label, Diego’s never felt the need to explain. 

What they say next, Diego commits to memory like his verbal exercises with Mom, like the physical defense and offense posters that line their living quarters. He looks at the men and he looks at the women and he knows that these faces and the words that they say will stay with him far beyond the Void. 

The floor is steeped with shallow waters, like always, but the blood there coats the soles of his feet like warm syrup. He chances a look at the mottled form, he dares to check that she might still be breathing. 

She is, he realises with some muted kind of horror that his mind is already beginning to file away under lock and key. Rasps that rattle and stir something viciously painful in Diego’s chest. What she is feeling, he feels by only a fraction, and still it is enough to knock the breath out of him. 

He must have been holding it this whole time. 

Diego wakes then, rears up wildly and knocks his head against the floorboards above. It smarts something terrible, and he knows that a welt will form on his forehead, but that is not what presses him at the moment, no. 

The sweltering heat is back, now that he has left the Void. Been taken from it, maybe. The air pushes and crushes and the static floods his eardrums wildly, where before it was nothing but background noise. He can hear Dad above, where he’s peeling back the rug and working at the latch, but Diego's desperation for light and air and room to move at all conquers all else and finds him pushing the little trapdoor open and almost hitting his father in the face. 

He counts his blessings, sparing as they are, that he misses by an inch. 

“What is it, Number Two? Out with it, boy!”

His father is kneeling on the floor, and Diego, still sunken in the crawl space, looks up at him. 

“Tom-mo- _ morrow. _ ” He manages, gulping audibly. 

“ _ Tomorrow? _ Use complete sentences, Number Two. Such vital details cannot be spared.” 

His father gives him a hand and Diego doesn’t quite know what to do, fixated on the offering and entirely absorbed by the notion of it possibly, somehow, being affection. He reaches for it and is hauled out of the space beneath the floorboards, dust falling from his shoulders and shorts and onto the carpeted floor. 

“These men are dangerous, as I’m sure you are aware. That is, if you were even remotely successful in doing what I asked of you.” 

Dad turns his back to Diego and walks around his desk, busying himself with his notes and not bothering to even offer another hanky.

The blood is thick now, crusted round his nostrils, having dripped all the way down his chin. It’s an ugly sight, he’s certain, but he at least thought that with his success in entering the Void, however long it was that he spent there, his father would take the time to  _ look  _ at him. 

He bunches up the tissue, more blood than paper, and shoves it at his nose, hoping that his attempts won’t be entirely futile. Diego stands tall when he addresses his father, despite the ache in his shoulders from being crammed up so tight, despite the shake of his hands at the amount of blood lost by him (by the girl on the floor). 

“I found them. The me-men. Three-- there w-w-were three of them.” 

“You can count.  _ Riveting. _ ”

Diego doesn’t falter, and carries on as if he is merely writing another entry in his journal.

“Three rifles. Em-m- M16s, some pistols. But those we-were for the g-gir-- ”

“Yes, Number Two?” His father looks up from his notes, finally. Feigning interest, for a brief moment.

“Irrelevant.” Diego says, keen on keeping his cool. “They said ‘b-bank. Sixth and m-main’.”

When Diego says these words, they sound foreign on his tongue. He knows what a bank is, they read about them and did a simulation once with Mom, where Ben had to go into the teller and discreetly withdraw a certain amount to pay his pretend bills. Klaus got to play the teller, he wore Mom’s heels for that role. 

The bank was the basement kitchen, and when things got boring, Five pretended to be a robber and mock security guards, Diego and Luther, had to take him down; all while Vanya and Allison played their roles as frightened members of the public perfectly, and hid under the table, eating the snacks that Mom had prepared for the activity.

Mom scolded them from the deviation of the day’s plans, but she never did tell Dad on them. 

“Capital West Bank. Yes, child, I am familiar with the location.”

“They’re g-going to rob it. Tom-tomorrow. At lunch time. They’re going to t-take hos-t- _ hostages. _ ” 

He pauses then, thinks of the girls on the sofa, the bruises he ignored for the sake of his own sanity. He thinks of the girl on the floor, suffering in her final moments, lying helplessly between three men who were too busy arguing about a bank heist to show her any kind of merciful death.

“The men, s-sir. They wi-wi- _ will  _ hurt their hostages.” Diego says with conviction, urging his father to understand the gravity of the situation. 

“W-We should d-d-do somethi-- ”

“Very well.” 

“What?” 

“There will be no additional training evening, Number Two. Go on and tell your siblings that there will be a briefing in the foyer prior to supper. Tardiness will not be tolerated.”

“But wh-why?”

“The Umbrella Academy must make its debut and there is no time quite like the present. Now, Number Two.” He looks Diego directly in the eyes, monocle pinching tight around his scrutinising gaze, before waving a hand in a vague gesture of apathy.

“You are dismissed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally going to be a lot longer, but i decided to split it in two and run along into the next chapter. i know nothing about guns, so i made the talk of them brief, but diego probably knows absolutely everything, despite not being his weapon of choice. 
> 
> i hope to update before season 2 comes out (ripppp), so we'll see how that goes. do let me know what you think, if you have the time, and thank you so much to those who commented on the last few chapters. your words mean so much!!


	7. heist.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Two! Five! Stick to the plan.” Luther yells, visibly distressed by their deviance as he tosses another criminal to the side like a ragdoll.
> 
> “Plan’s change, One.” Five says with a grunt, pinning one of the robbers to the teller’s desk with one of Diego’s knives. He doesn’t recall his brother taking it. “We’re _adapting._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw canon-typical violence and gore  
> tw child abuse/domestic abuse

In another universe, the Umbrella Academy debut their powers almost three hours into a hostage situation at Capital West Bank. 

In this universe, they greet the robbers at the door. 

Allison skips up behind them, hands behind her back; hair free and tumbling across her shoulders in a style executed by Mom, because they had all the time in the world to get ready this morning. 

Because of Diego. 

She whispers something, and the smallest of the men - whose form burned the backs of Diego’s eyes as he slept fitfully through last night - jerks to shoot one of the other men in his foot. A spray of bullets rains on the room and Diego manages to dodge one as it flies his way. 

He tumbles to the ground in a practised somersault and lands in a crouch next to Ben who, alongside Klaus, is tucking himself away behind the looming marble columns and getting quite comfortable there. 

Diego wonders if perhaps they aren’t all ready for this. Because for the likes of Allison and Luther, and of course Five, there is little possibility that any of them will get into a situation that they might find distressing. Allison can make anyone do anything she wants, Luther is stronger, skin like steel and far more resilient than the rest of them, and if Five does not wish to be shot, he can simply vanish. 

Diego’s not entirely sure what it is that he can do with bullets himself. They haven’t really put it into practise yet. Maybe Dad would have, had they not discovered the Void, had the bath not been a priority for the last decade of his life. Right now, however, it isn’t worth the risk of finding out. So Diego makes a dash for Five who has concealed himself behind the adjacent pillar and watches the game unfold.

It doesn’t exactly make him feel better, but when Luther bursts between the four of them and throws the least memorable of the group up and through the ceiling windows, Diego feels the weight in his chest lighten a fraction. 

This is frightening. It’s the inside of his mind and the place where the darkness is, projected into the reality that he sees before him. But more than that it is _exhilarating._ It is what he and his siblings have been training for from the moment they could put one foot in front of the other. 

It is years of broken bones from the largest of their number, blood on the parlour floor, mind control, dead nannies, and sleeping in a tank filled to the brim with salted water more than he sleeps in his own bed.

He and Five silently agree to venture out and into the middle of the floor and when a man twice their size - one who sat back and watched as his colleagues beat an innocent girl into a bloody suffering - makes a dash for them, Diego blocks the blow. With his left hand he swings, knuckles pinched and locked, and catches the man’s eyeball in a swift clip before rearing his leg up in a kick that catches his opponent between the legs. The man tumbles down and onto the floor, where Diego’s Oxford’s (polished by Mom that very morning) stomp his head against the marble with a sickening crack.

The other criminals disperse before the same can happen to them. 

The hostages, who haven’t even been tied up yet, run loose and wild, screaming in fear and looking for somewhere to take cover. And he’d help them, but disarming the culprits of this messy heist takes priority. Dad would say so and Diego makes sure to mention as much to his remaining siblings who are still standing in the foyer. 

“I spy th-three rifles. W-wo-one of them’s g-g-got a glock.” He swallows, trying to force his words up faster, better, clearer. “So the m-magazine’s got a m-m-max of fifteen rounds.”

“We’re not _blind,_ Two.” Five mutters irritably, throwing himself onto the scene in a blast of blue that has both the hostages and the robbers flinching in fear. 

His attacks are sloppy, but effective. Piling onto the back of a man Diego doesn’t recognise, one that had been scrambling his way towards the vault. 

There are more men than Diego said there would be. Maybe they recruited a larger number due to the scale of the job. Dad will be displeased by this, and it is likely that Diego will be punished for it.

When it’s his turn again, Diego utters a line that he’d spent hours practising with Mom while she completed her cross stitch in the picture gallery. Somewhere in the background, playing lookout, he can hear Klaus giggle mercilessly at the embarrassment of it, but Diego’s focus is entirely too preoccupied to smack him upside the head for being mean about it. 

Because he could hit the biggest of them, the one who had physically dominated the neverending space of the Void and had Diego shaking violently all night after. He could throw his knives in a straight line and catch him perfectly in each shoulder to incapacitate him and leave him up to the authorities. But while Allison’s got him, the big guy and his gun aren’t even a slight threat. They can do no harm. 

So when he throws two of his best knives from a single hand, there is an unbearably tense moment where the occupants of the bank halt with the notion that Diego has gone and thrown a knife at his own sister. There are gasps and screams for her to move out of the way, but Allison stays put with her smug smile, hands behind her back, obviously having rumoured the criminal in her charge to remain still, and bounces on the heels of her feet. 

Right as Diego’s knives swing left and land right in the chest of the worst of them all. The man who’d greeted Diego in the Void the afternoon prior, welcomed him with images of an innocent girl being pummelled beneath his fists and left to decay on the floor of some decrepit space. 

They land with a solid thunk, penetrating muscle and tissue and splitting bone, and Diego feels the sensation of it reverberate back up the strings and thrum at the very centre of his own chest. 

Later, he will tell his siblings that it was a mistake. That he didn’t mean to kill the man with the skull mask, that he moved too fast and altered the trajectory. But by now, they know all of that to be untrue. They know that their brother does not miss in situations such as these. 

They know that Diego killed this man, and many others after, with undeniable intent. 

They do not have time to dwell on it in the moment, however, because the men attempting to break into the vault suddenly seem far more absorbed with the fact that these are not mere children attacking them, no. That this is serious. That one of their own is slumped against the wall with a thirteen year old’s knives stuck in his chest like a pincushion. 

Five shrugs while their remaining siblings gape, because that was _not_ part of the plan. He seems to take it as a signal from Diego that everyone is fair game, that this is what they're doing now.

So the next time that Five jumps, it is not to toy with the criminals and replace their weapons with office stationary, no, it is onto the back of a grown man who has his rifle aimed square at Diego’s chest. 

The sound of the man’s neck being snapped from behind is lost to the spray of bullets that blasts from the press of his trigger finger, that miss Diego by a hair’s breadth. Five grins at his brother and lands gracelessly on the floor, jumping onto his next victim, though doing significantly less harm this time around. 

“Two! Five! Stick to the plan.” Luther yells, visibly distressed by their deviance as he tosses another criminal to the side like a ragdoll. 

“Plan’s change, One.” Five says with a grunt, pinning one of the robbers to the teller’s desk with one of Diego’s knives. He doesn’t recall his brother taking it. “We’re _adapting._ ”

It’s not so much a decision as pure instinct that Diego runs with it. He’s the one who started this, after all. He’s the one who drew first blood. It’s understandable that their enemies would be hurt, or offended, or _whatever._ Diego _gets_ it, but he holds no sympathy. Not when he pictures the girl on the floor and the state she was left in after these men were done with her. 

It’s easy after that -- to use his knives and Dad’s training to take the remaining criminals out. Luther continues adamantly with his methods of non-fatal attack, while Five seems relatively unconcerned by the whole thing, and Allison is rather preoccupied and bored by the act of rumouring the hostages into calming down. 

Diego slices, guts, maims. It’s easy to get lost in the sensation of flesh, and how it splits like butter beneath the steel of his blade.

There are four criminals remaining -- only two of them, Diego remembers from the Void -- and it’s not as if Diego had planned on killing another. One felt like enough; even Five seemed to think so, perhaps the crack of his victim’s neck breaking beneath his hands felt like a little too much for their first real mission. 

Diego really had intended to go on as Luther said. To incapacitate the criminals and leave them to be dealt with and charged by the authorities. 

While Ben and Klaus remain by the doors, keeping look out and thankful for not having to use their powers (it was evident to all of the siblings, though none of them would ever discuss it, that Ben didn’t want to reveal his powers to _anyone,_ let alone such a small pool of the public), each of Diego’s remaining siblings take on a criminal of their own, leaving the last one to him. The biggest. The one Allison had rumoured when they first arrived. The one who doesn’t look too happy about that fact. 

The man makes for Allison while she is distracted by his slighter associate, delivering swift kicks to the man’s stomach with the toes of her shiny shoes. He’s got the pistol from before, and Diego feels foolish for not remembering exactly how many rounds the man had fired since his initial shot into his friend’s foot. 

The man’s back is to him as he lumbers over and Allison doesn’t appear to notice, not when she’s doing such a good job at knocking a grown man to his knees. 

But Diego remembers the Void and he remembers the girls. He saw girls like Allison, like Vanya. Girls who were too young to be anything close to women. Girls who were entirely helpless. And while Allison is not helpless, she is still distracted by her opponent. 

Diego does not trust himself to get the words out in time, not when the larger man is so swift in his approach. Allison’s an excellent fighter, but two against one, particularly when she’s been taken by surprise, could result in an injury, and Diego stuttering out a mess of a yell towards his sister could jeopardise her safety even further. 

So instead of saying anything, Diego flicks his wrist and fires his knife at the largest man, knowing Allison can take the other down by herself. He pictures the intended target in his mind, just like he pictures his words, and when Diego’s knife curves, it is in a smooth arc that curls an entire 180 degrees around the man before landing directly in his heart. 

He collapses to the ground, blood pooling around him and choking from his mouth. Diego dares to venture over, to yank the knife from his chest, thinking his part is done and that the others will have done theirs soon.

He’s wiping the blood from the blade onto the pant leg of his uniform when he feels it. A blow to his back, the deep ache of something cracking inside him. 

He only has a second to turn before his assailant pins him to the marble floors. The one from before, that Diego stomped with his foot, no longer unconscious and not at all happy to see him. 

If it weren’t for the weight of this man, Diego would be able to match his blows. Without a doubt. He is of average build, but doesn’t pack as much of a punch as Luther. And though Diego can’t manage to get out from under him, he’s not at all afraid until the man produces a pistol and points it dead at the centre of Diego’s forehead. 

This has never happened before in training. Nothing Dad taught them thus far could have prepared them for the feeling that floods Diego at the cold press of the barrel to his skin. He chokes on his fear, but the words do not get stuck. Instead they run away from him, foolishly, and escape his mouth in a derisive laugh. 

“Is that a .32?” His chest burns as it vibrates, chuckles catching on the spaces between his ribs, breath knocked out of him as much as it can be. 

“The _fuck_ did you say, brat?” The press of the pistol is bruising, and if Diego could rear back he would. But there is no space between the gun and the floor, nowhere for him to run, no room for strings that he can curve. 

“I’ll kill you, you little shit!” The blood from the wound Diego inflicted upon him drips between them. The hostages gasp, screaming at the thoughts of a child at the slaughter.

Diego has imagined it a million times over.

“I’ll fucking _kill_ y-- ”

But the sentence is never finished, the action does not reach completion. Instead, Diego is coated in a layer of slime that stains the front of his uniform with an otherworldly grey. It is cold and it stinks, but it is a damn sight better than a bullet in his brain. 

The man who’d been about to kill him screams. It’s a guttural thing, as a tentacle wraps around his middle and squeezes him like he’s made of foam. 

Diego sits up on the floor, leans back on the palms of his hands and watches as the Horror’s remaining tentacles curl their way out of Ben’s stomach and slam the man’s body between them, scooping up the remaining criminals and launching them through windows, at columns, bouncing off one another and landing as bloody corpses with a casual splatter. 

Ben tugs his sweater and shirt back down, covering up like saving his siblings like that was mortifying, shameful even. Diego makes his way over, slower than he’d like, to steady Ben while Klaus releases the hostages out onto the street and Allison declares the situation handled, the threats eliminated. 

Luther helps Five tie up the remaining robbers, still unconscious, and won’t look in Ben and Diego’s direction. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal. The job is done and they did the best they could do. 

_Ben saved his life._

“Wa-wanna w-w-wash the blood off?” Diego guides his brother to the men’s toilets (a strange concept, they all use the same bathroom back at the academy) and wipes his face with wet tissue at the row of sinks. 

Ben is positively green at the gills. He clutches at his stomach while Diego wipes the blood, fresh, harder to work with, from his face and neck. He must be feeling awfully sick, so Diego will ask Mom to make Ben some peppermint tea before bed. Perhaps he should lend Ben one of his hot water bottles too. 

Diego doesn’t bother with trying to rid the mess from Ben’s hair. Like Diego’s own, it is dark enough to hide the majority of the mess, though arguably Diego’s is still too short to conceal much at all. 

“Thanks.” Ben says, as Diego runs the tissue’s down his legs and pulls his socks up over the mess that cannot be cleaned. 

“It’s o-kay.” 

“You’re hurt. You shouldn’t bend over like that, Two.”

“Luther’s do-done w-w-wor-- _ugh._ ” His head hurts quite a bit, Diego chooses to tell himself that that is why he’s messing up. But Ben waits, because Ben _always_ waits. “ _Worse._ It’s just some br-bruising.”

Ben nods, like that is enough. Like they won’t all lie awake at night wondering if one of their number has had to stay in the infirmary. How it will likely be Ben. 

Five jumps into the bathroom just as Diego has managed to pry Ben’s hands from his stomach and button his blazer over the stains that have darkened the wool of his sweater. 

Neither of them flinch as Five shoves two coats in their direction, scarves that Pogo had collected from them earlier. 

“There are cameras outside. It’s cold.” 

_It will cover up the blood,_ is what he really means.

Diego rights his domino mask and Ben does his best to wipe the blood from his own, and the moment their coats are buttoned, Five is leading them out of the bathroom to meet with the rest of their siblings on the front steps of the bank. 

It is there that the journalists scream, that the lights flash and the camera crews film. Diego does his best to focus, to not get lost in the din of it. To stand tall in order of their numbers, next to Luther, a dark shadow to his brother’s blond and golden ray of sunshine. 

Allison beams next to him, waves to the cameras with Klaus as the reporters yell questions that none of them are equipped to answer. 

Diego is, would very much like to tell them:

_It was me! I found them!_

_I did it all by myself._

_I killed them, just like they killed that girl._

_She had curly red hair and a birthmark on her neck, if anyone is looking for her._

But Dad swoops in, like he can read Diego’s mind. Like he can hear every thought and see each little intent. 

When he talks, it is a fantastical version of his father, one that Diego and his siblings are not accustomed to. One that hosted parties for ambassadors and world leaders and stocks a full bar despite not allowing anyone into his mansion after purchasing his children. 

The Umbrella Academy, for that is how they are now known, pose for the cameras and leave the trembling until they are at home in their beds. They walk in an ordered line like ducklings, following their father back to the car, never to break rank. 

When they all take their seats, he manages to nab one next to Ben, which Five has little to say about. Diego squeezes Ben’s hand, because Ben saved him, and Diego doesn’t quite know how to thank him for it; not when his words have gotten stuck again, given up entirely for the day. 

Dad sees this, and does not acknowledge any of them for the entire journey home. 

Diego squeezes tighter.

-:-

  
  


Vanya had spent the entire evening after the heist lurking on the periphery of their exhausted group. Fingers pinched anxiously around the doorframe, she peers into Allison’s room, where they are all, aside from Luther, sat in a circle and relishing in the feeling of their first mission complete. 

It is quiet, blissful almost. Diego leans back against his sister’s cushy pillows and prays that the painkillers Mom gave him earlier will kick in soon enough. It is lucky that he doesn’t need to breathe for how his ribs ache when he tries to; Allison lacks that advantage, hunched over at her dressing table and trying to act like it doesn’t hurt while she tugs at the ends of her hair. She holds this position, right up until Luther walks in, when she straightens to look unbothered and uninjured, fixing herself up in the mirror.

"Dad said to report to the study for a briefing after dinner. No exceptions.”

Klaus groans, rolling around on the bed and jostling Diego and Ben with how he bounces the mattress. When his legs extend, they catch the top of Five’s head from where he is reading on the floor. Five either does not notice, or doesn’t care enough to mention it, which only furthers Klaus’ wriggling as he whines at Luther.

“But we already _told_ Dad everything. You’re such a kiss-ass, Luth.” 

“Dad wanted to hear it _directly_ from me, as the team leader. I had to evaluate everyone’s performance.” Luther’s chest puffs out and Diego snorts behind his hand. Vanya copies him, a soft little inhale sounding from the doorway. 

Allison is no longer absorbed by her reflection and instead turns to Luther. “So what is it that you said about us?”

“That you did brilliantly.” Luther says to her. Allison preens at this, delighted to finally use her powers on real criminals, on real grown-ups and not her siblings. 

“Debatable.” Five interrupts. “But what about the rest of us.” 

“You were acceptable, if a bit showy.” Luther says. Five scoffs.

“Wh-what about m-m-me?”

“I told him that you went against protocol. That you directly defied orders, because you _did._ ” Luther says, brutal, unrelenting; _the mark of a true leader,_ Dad says. 

“It w-wa-wa-- ” Diego halts, fists clenched and a growl sat heavily on his tongue at his own inability to speak. “ _Was_ necessary.”

“ _Necessary?_ Says who?” Luther laughs, incredulous. Allison laughs too, just like him. Like it’s all a big joke that only the pair of them are privy to. “You went straight for the kill, Diego, without just cause.”

“It didn’t mm-mean for it to g- _go_ like that. He mo-m-moved to shoot and it al-alt-altered the t-tr-t-- ”

“Whatever, Two.” Luther waves a hand and Diego fumes. Next to the door, Vanya tucks herself around he outside of the frame, edging from the room like she knows what’s about to go down. 

Luther is usually good about it, letting Diego finish. He waits and listens, he doesn’t interrupt like Klaus or Allison are often guilty of doing; even Vanya doesn’t quite grasp how much it frustrates him. 

Luther always says: _Practise makes perfect, Two._

_How do you expect to get better at talking if you don’t actually_ talk?

_Here, I’ll help you. I finished my algebra ages ago._

And yeah, it makes Diego feel stupid and inferior. And sometimes these conversations end in fights, usually physical, as if Luther is cutting him some slack because he knows that Diego could never compete verbally. Like Number One has to teach Number Two how to talk, like Luther thinks he is a _baby,_ like he isn’t _actually_ trying. 

But sometimes it feels nice. Like he and Luther are brothers and not in eternal competition with one another. That outside of broken bones and stitches and classroom debates, there is room for something else, something kind and considerate, and well beyond the realms of Dad’s reach. 

Clearly, Diego was wrong about that one. 

“B-Beh-Ben killed more of them than m-me!” Diego says, finally managing to talk past the awful feeling that has settled in his throat, burning something ferocious. “And Five sn-napped that guy’s n-neck.”

“You started it, though! Five just followed your lead.”

“I follow no one.” Five interrupts. 

Luther ignores him, arms folded across his chest, looking down at Diego like he always does; making everyone feel _small._

“And Ben didn’t kill those criminals. The Horror did. It’s _different._ ”

Judging by the look on Ben’s face, he doesn’t seem to agree. Nothing is said, though, as he curls his limbs like there’s something of himself he can hide. Like they don’t all know it’s the Horror that lives in his stomach, like they haven’t all grown accustomed to it like it is merely another of his limbs. 

Klaus’ hand falls onto Ben’s back, rubbing soothing circles, Diego can imagine. It’s easy to let his rage take the wheel when the little, hurtful feelings that make up their life in this cavernous house become less of a distraction. 

But he ignores the guilt that threatens to swallow him whole. Hell bent on not being the bad guy in this situation.

Diego knows he can’t tell them. He knows there’s a reason that Dad does not discuss his powers at briefings or during training. It’s not a factor that the others are meant to be aware of, it is an unsteady thing that does not fall into the realm of understanding that they are accustomed to. Not like Klaus being able to see the dead, or Allison being able to control them with her words. 

Most of all, Diego is certain, it is something that Dad does not understand; and it is best that the rest of his children do not become aware of that fact. 

Diego would like to tell them everything, to rub it in their faces that he is the reason this mission happened in the first place. That the attention they received from the press and their victory in the eyes of the city is because Diego lay flat under Dad’s floorboards and saw something unforgettable in the black of his mind. 

That he is the reason Mom let them have cookies after breakfast, that Pogo cancelled lessons for the day, that Dad allowed them an extra fifteen minutes of recreational time on Saturday for a mission completed. 

But at risk of furthering his father’s wrath, Diego’s words should be clipped, kept only to the necessities. Enough to vindicate him; enough to make it so that he is not the bad guy when all he wanted to do was avenge the death of a girl who will not be remembered. 

“Bad m-mm-- ” The words are like glue in his mouth. Tacky and hard to swallow, hard to spit back up. 

The roll of Allison’s eyes is expected; the way Vanya shies back further and into the shadows of the hallway. Klaus mouths the word for Diego, silently doing his best at finishing the sentence, a mimicry of what it is that Diego really wants to say. Ben doesn’t say much at all, still intent on making himself appear smaller, but Diego likes to think that the look of disgust on his face is not due to the Horror alone. 

And, possibly worst of all, it is Luther who scoffs. 

His head is tipped back in the beginnings of a laugh, as Diego sputters, as his mouth jams and his lips refuse to move around the words he wishes to say. The burning rage in the base of his throat melts into something else, something that catches and has his eyes welling almost enough to spill over. 

Perhaps Luther is not expecting it, because when Diego lunges for him, Number One plummets on to Allison’s bedroom floor and just about misses smashing his head against her bedpost. 

Diego feels the jolt of landing on top of his brother in how his teeth clatter together on impact, crushing anything he might have said and trapping it beneath his tongue. 

He swings, a clean uppercut to Luther’s jaw. He pins his brother to the rug and Klaus cheers. He grabs a fistful of Luther’s close-cropped hair -- hair that Diego can’t _have,_ can’t grow out, because of the _bath_ and the _Void_ and Dad’s _dumb_ experiments -- and slams his brother’s head back. He uses his left hand to trap Luther’s right and Ben urges them to stop. Vanya whimpers. Allison warns. 

But she doesn’t need to rumour Diego, because Luther, as always, gets the upper hand with his brutish strength and rears forward in an impressive tackle. Dad would praise his Number One for this, Diego knows. 

When Luther lands on top of him, the back of Diego’s skull smarts something awful. His head rings wildly and without reprieve. His brother belts him in the gut, kicks at his shins, could throw Diego through Allison’s bedroom window if he really wanted to. But when he hauls Diego from the floor, it’s to fire him across the room, tumbling over the single bed, missing Ben by an inch, and landing on the other side. 

Diego aches all over, his chest throbs, his teeth feel gritty and vibrate in his mouth. But he started this, just like he started the killing at the bank. Dad raised Diego to be many things: second best, a warrior, selectively mute, a _hero,_ but he did not raise a quitter. 

The knife he slips from the lining of his blazer is small. He toys with it between his fingers, flipping it as a defense, to ward Luther off. To make it clear to his brother that whatever attack he is planning, Diego’s strike will _always_ land first.

“Cut it out, guys.” Ben says, tugging at the bottom of his clean, bloodless shirt. Klaus nods next to him, pocketing a bottle of Allison’s nail polish from her nightstand. 

“It was funny for a second, but I’m the understudy in this superhero production and I do _not_ fancy taking Diego’s place if you break all his bones, Luth.”

“Put that _back,_ Klaus. Get your own.”

“Dad won’t _let_ me have my own.” Klaus bites at Allison, hissing as he clutches at the pockets of his shorts. Diego readies to strike, knowing Luther will be distracted while Allison holds the room. “Haven’t you ever heard of _sharing,_ princess?”

“You don’t _share_ , you _steal!_ ” Allison says, pointer finger all up in Klaus’ face, and Diego can’t help but be miffed at how his plight has so suddenly been forgotten. Luther will have gotten the last hit. Dad will punish Diego in private and his siblings will know nothing of what he has to go through all because Luther can’t keep his mouth shut. 

Diego wishes he could get his own to open. 

“Enough!” Five interrupts anything Diego might -- but most likely wouldn’t -- have said. “You’re all a bunch of buffoons if you think I’m going to deal with this after every mission.

“You all complain about not being given the time to explore _hobbies_ or ogle one another across the table.” They all pointedly do not look in Allison and Luther’s direction. Klaus purses his lips and makes a kissy face. “And when our father gives us the evening off after a mission well executed, you waste it fighting over irrelevant deaths and pastel nail polish.”

“This is a debriefing, Five. _I’m_ Number One.”

“No it’s not. I’m certain we’ll hear _all_ about it when Dad has his turn with us.” Shoulders hunched, Five stuffs his hands into his pockets irritably. “Diego did what needed to be done, as did myself and Ben. The mission is _complete._ Being Number One does not mean you parrot what Dad says blindly, that you fulfill all of his whims like a puppet on a string, so give it a rest, would you? If we’re going to do these missions properly, we can’t resort to petty squabbling over every criminal’s death. Not when there is so much more at stake.” 

None of them dare ask, the tension in the room dissolving into something else, something less vicious and far more anxious, as to how what they did today will likely be what they will continue to do for years to come. Diego tries not to think about it too much, how it felt to kill those men, how there is a small part of him that feels relieved, knowing they’re gone. Knowing they can’t hurt those girls again, hurt _him._

He’s proud at the thoughts of it, but is aware that his father won’t be, so he reigns in any positive feelings that might threaten to overwhelm him before he can get ahead of himself. 

Five zaps from between them and reappears next to Allison’s dressing table to swipe the book he must have set down before coming to end their squabble. He nudges Vanya with his elbow on the way out the door, but not before turning to address the room at large, eyes settling heavy on Diego for a fraction of a second.

“And Klaus, if you’re going to steal Allison’s nail polish, at least choose another colour. Pastels wash you out, you _know_ that.” 

One by one, they all trickle out. Diego’s not sure of the order, because he does not wait long before following Five and Vanya’s exit. 

He’s far too tired to be scolded by Allison, to joke with Klaus about the look on Luther’s face, to acknowledge Ben’s constant disappointment in how Diego can’t help but lose it at every little thing. 

Ben has the luxury of words, he does not get to judge. 

He finds himself stuck on what Five said about strings, how they’re all around Diego, how he sees them and the way they guide the universe, but how Dad’s strings are another beast entirely. How he teases and plays with them, tugs too hard and stretches them taut, how most days Diego feels an inch from snapping. How Dad’s been doing this to all of them for thirteen years now, and how Five has to keep reminding them of the fact, for they are often so blind to their father’s intent. 

Blinded by notions of being superheroes, not murderers. Of saving the day from people who would wish harm unto others, when _they_ are the ones doing the harming. Diego feels as if maybe he’s always known that it’s not okay, in the way that Ben knows with every fibre of his being and never hesitates in reminding Diego of how wrong this all is. 

The thing is, he doesn’t mind that much. Not when the things he sees in the Void are so vile and disturbing and wreck him so viciously that he wonders how there could possibly be any good in the world. 

Five doesn’t care for the good in the world, he simply wants to _be_ in it. He wants to be _beyond._ They all know it, how he itches. How he writes equations on the inside of his arm when he runs out of paper, how he wrote a string of numbers on Diego’s leg when he fell asleep during their recreational time. Before _real_ tattoos, before heroes and journalists and _murder_ and beasts of men who beat young girls and deserve something far worse than prison for it. 

Before they could possibly know what the world might hold, Five had an inkling. He’s always known something more, and Diego’s always resented him for it. He could be free from this, he could jump through space and arrive somewhere nice, he could come visit and Dad would never know; maybe if he got powerful enough, he could take them all with him. 

But Dad has Five wrapped up in his strings too. Wound so tight that sometimes it feels as if they could be the same person. 

Months from now, Diego will wonder if maybe Five was better off caught up in them after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> five in season one: nice skirt  
> klaus: danke
> 
> me: five dispensing unsolicited advice about fashion and colour theory to klaus when he wears nothing but a school uniform for the entirety of the show. 
> 
> also, the comments and the last chapter absolutely blew me away! you're all so lovely and really motivated me to get this chapter done after the whirlwind that was season two. i appreciate each and every one of them! things are really picking up for the umbrella academy. we're about to get into angsty territory, sorry not sorry in advance (':


	8. worth.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He cries, that much he can recall. Fat, hot tears, unlike Allison’s crocodile ones, catch on the corner of his mouth and curve the line of his jaw. When the salty taste reaches his tongue, it is the bath he thinks of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> triggers warnings at the end of the chapter!

“Hello, my name is Grace. It’s a  _ pleasure  _ to meet you.”

“I’m Num-Numb--  _ ugh, _ T- _ Tw- _ T-- I can’t, this isn’t w-wo-working.”

“Now, now, Diego. You’re not going to get  _ anywhere  _ with that attitude.”

Mom taps her flour coated index finger against the tip of his nose as she passes, twirls with her skirt fanning out in an elegant swish and bends over to place the first batch of cookies in the oven. 

Diego wipes it with the back of his hand, too old for such things, he tells himself. Too old for bedtime cuddles and hot water bottles tucked against his feet. Cotton and lavender and baths with bubbles that distract him from the real thing. Mom still cuts his hair short, but not as short as before (not when the bath has become redundant to his training in the Void). She leaves a little on top, says it makes him look older, frames his face, will have him highlighted as the heartthrob in all of those magazines. Like the magazine that is interviewing them today. 

It’s the only reason he’s here -- not because he craves the comfort of completing normal tasks, of being a normal boy with his mother, baking cookies in the kitchen, no. He’s here because everyone else is taking an eon to get ready and Diego spent all of last night preparing himself for their interview with  _ Teen Vogue. _

While his siblings read and played and slept and gossiped, Diego did pull ups on his door frame and push ups on his bedroom floor. He showered to avoid the morning rush, brief as always, spending as little time beneath the stream as possible. He had Mom tidy up his hair and ran through the list of things that Dad told them they were permitted to discuss. He practised saying them, over and over, but there are things that never manage to stick. The simplest of things, in Diego’s case. 

Like his name.  _ Any  _ of them. 

“Let’s try that one again, hmm? Pass me the salt, dear.”

Diego watches as the crackles salt over the balls of dough, her special ingredient that only he knows about.  _ Their little secret.  _

“Num-ber T-T-T-  _ Mom. _ ”

He’s aware that his impatience is winning over, bleeding into a particular kind of frustration that has his fists clenching, pulling and stretching at the scabs on his knuckles, has his teeth gritting and his throat tightening around his tongue. 

But Mom is there, cherry smiles and lavender, a clean palm to his cheek, smoothing away tears that have yet to spill; a pre-emptive action of her programming, perhaps. 

“Say the full sentence, dear, you know that it’s easier.  _ H _ is a good letter for you.”

“But I don’t w-wa-want to sound formal.”

“Nonsense, dear. They’re going to  _ adore  _ a polite boy like you. I just  _ know  _ that they will be so impressed by a hero with such lovely manners.”

The frown that curls his lip and bunches his brow softens into something that is only malleable for Mom. His smile for her, though slight, reaches his eyes. It reaches from the top of his head all the way to the tips of his toes, as he lifts the tray from the counter and places the second batch of cookies onto the oven’s lower shelf. 

Mom tuts at the absence of mitts, but fails to correct or scold him where others typically would. Diego had thought that yelling and beating were something solely reserved for paternal figures in normal families, like his own Dad, and that all mothers were like his own: the sun. 

A few dips into the Void that took him to places and people he could not understand, proved otherwise. Diego is quite aware now that he is lucky to have such a good mother. One who is entirely devoted to him and his siblings, who tucks them in and irons their clothes, who spends large portions of time that are typically devoted to the preparation of meals instead multi-tasking, and coaching him through something so basic as the speech that his siblings have never struggled to grasp. 

“Hello, m-mmy…” He clears his throat. Begin again. 

“ _ Hello, my name is Diego. _ ” He says, in a single, hurried breath. 

“Wonderful, darling, well done!”

_ Lovely. _ A word Ben read from a book once. Bouncing from his tongue. Something soft, like a kiss; joyous, like a smile. That’s what Mom is, Diego thinks.  _ Lovely.  _

It is because of this that when Pogo calls for them to assemble in the foyer, when footsteps thunder down the stairs and yelps of numbers being knocked over echo all the way into the lower kitchen, Diego takes an extra moment to lean on the counter as leverage and angle his head upwards to plant a soft kiss on the curve of his Mom’s cheek. Knowing he’ll be last, despite being ready the longest. 

“Good luck, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, M- _ Mom. _ ”

-:-

“I’m Number One, leader of the Umbrella Academy.”

“Number Three, or you can call me All--  _ ouch,  _ Six. Rude.” Ben waves with the hand he previously used to pinch at Allison’s hip, utters solely his name as a pleasant greeting before Klaus can interrupt.

“ _ The Séance _ is what they call me now. But I guess if you wanna be _ boring,  _ you can call me Four.”

“Five. Just Five.”

_ Relax. _

_ Take your time. _

_ Picture the word in your mind. _

“Hello, my name is T-Tw-- ”

“Hey, Two. Let’s get started. Shall we?”

-:-

**And for you, Number Three, being the only girl in a superhero squad full of boys, well, I imagine that must be challenging?**

_ “Oh, quite.” She nods, much to the evident chagrin of her brothers. “It’s a lot of pressure, being the only girl, but I appreciate the responsibility. And I certainly feel that I’m mature enough to handle it.” The siblings are sitting in order, from lowest to highest, as is typical for the entry and exit of their widely publicised missions _ **_[fig. 3]_ ** _. This gives Number Four ample opportunity to nudge his sister fondly, a conspiratorial smile passing between the two. Quite a pair they make.  _

**You all have such striking personalities! Who’s the leader here? The bad boy? The right-hand man; or woman!**

_ Appropriately, Number One answers, commandeering the reins before any others dare to interrupt. “Well, as Number One, I am the leader. However, our success is always a direct result of working well as a team.” The other members of the Umbrella Academy nod dutifully. “We are capable of independent thought, I assure you.” Says Number Five, teasing their leader, though with an edge that I imagine requires context. Before I can ask, Numbers Three and Four interrupt. “I’m the charismatic one.” Says Four, though his sister appears to disagree.  _ “Sure _ you are.” She says, with a roll of her eyes, glancing to her right this time to eye up her most reserved brother. “Two’s the bad boy.” A string of giggles follow, and I count myself fortunate to witness such a casual display from our city’s typically stoic heroes. “Always going rogue on missions, he  _ never  _ listens to One.” _

_ “No  _ way. _ ” Says Number Two, his nervous nature such a contrast to his severe public persona. “It’s not  _ bad  _ if I’m saving people.” _

_ Number Five, with his old soul and perfectly matching knee-high socks, rolls his eyes at his siblings antics. Clearly he is accustomed to this playful behaviour. Number Six appears content in it, on the periphery yet intermittently dragged into the fray by a nudge to the shoulder or a ruffle of his well-kept hair. Rambling ensues, I try, and fail, to keep track.  _

_ Perhaps the members of the Umbrella Academy are no different than our own families, perhaps the superhero persona of each of these teens vanishes behind the looming doors of their renowned mansion. We may never know, though this exclusive interview is as close as anyone is going to get.  _

_ Or you could take a peek at page 6 to find out  _ **_10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Umbrella Academy._ **

_ Or take our quiz to find out  _ **_Which Member of the Umbrella Academy are You?_ **

-:-

While he had been grateful that the interviewer --  _ call me Brenda, this is gonna be super casual, pinky promise _ \-- had decided that including his stutter wouldn’t make for particularly good reading, how Dad would never know that Diego had essentially choked his way through their biggest interview to date, the fear that sunk in his gut at Allison’s off-script implications had Diego entirely unable to stomach his dinner. 

Dad had made it abundantly clear that they were to appear as a unit. A single unit. No personalities assigned, no archetypes. Nothing besides One as their leader and a collection of numbers that follow his direction. Allison’s comment had singled Diego out, had made him something other than the faceless Number Two. 

Sure, Klaus had tried for charm, but charm kept the crowds calm when Number Four was resigned to his role of lookout for the majority of missions. Charm got ghosts to cough up information that was often vital in escape strategies. 

_ Bad boy _ was another thing entirely, a phrase Mom used to scold them. Like when Klaus and Diego had spent the entirety of last Saturday’s recreation period parroting every curse word they knew, back and forth, on Vanya’s bedroom floor.

Everyone knows how Klaus learned his: ghosts tell him lots of things. Things that frighten him and have him up all night, crying for Mom, for  _ anyone  _ to come and comfort him. Sometimes it’s Diego, sometimes it’s not, it  _ can’t  _ be, because Diego has his own demons to visit, and they unknowingly teach him bad words too. 

Mom hates it, says such phrases are improper and not the kind of language that ought to be used by young gentlemen. She calls them _ bad boys,  _ and somehow Dad gets wind of it, never hesitates in demonstrating his disgust at how they resort to such base insults.  _ Do they not possess a single ounce of intelligence? _

It’s the same question he poses at dinner, a week following their big interview with Brenda. The magazine sits before him, unwelcome amongst his collection of broadsheets and academic journals. It should be comical, the sight of their father analysing the pages of  _ Teen Vogue, _ but Diego can’t find it in himself to snicker behind his hand the way Klaus is. Not when he knows what consequences could follow. 

“ _Are_ _you_ saving people, Number Two?”

The clinking of cutlery ceases, as does Diego’s ability to construct an adequate response. Klaus laughs no more and Allison’s grin turns to something sour. She didn’t think of the outcome. She never does. 

“Yes, Si-- ”

“Surely the measure of civilians you save should justify your  _ blatant  _ disregard for protocol. Your siblings manage to save a far greater number on a regular basis, without the need to deviate from Number One’s direction.”

Untrue. Their last mission had Luther assigning Diego the role of lookout, despite being the best long distance attacker on their whole team; if you exclude Five, or Ben on a  _ good  _ day. 

The range between them and the smugglers at the dock, who  _ Diego  _ located in the first place, by the way, had been too great for Allison’s power to be of any use without causing potential endangerment. They all knew this, Luther most of all, and still delegated that Diego ought to keep watch. 

Like he wasn’t the best option for offense, like he wasn’t the only one who’d last in the water if any of them got tossed, like he wasn’t the one to locate the smugglers in the  _ first  _ place. 

But Luther only knew one of these things. Just like his siblings. Just like the world. 

Maybe Dad had wanted him to use his other powers, debut his lack of a need to breathe at this opportune moment, and saving civilians didn’t factor into his cares at all. Like it was a challenge, a proof of bravery, of  _ worth. _ But Diego didn’t grasp that at the time, because Dad always made him keep these parts of himself a secret. 

And it shouldn’t have mattered, because Diego had taken down the most, he knew that (The Horror didn’t count, that’s what they all said). Or perhaps it was that criminals killed do not equate to civilians saved, as Luther never fails to remind him. 

“Is it attention that you are starved of? Does Grace not coddle you enough, Number Two?”

Whatever foolish retort he had planned catches in his throat. Bubbles, white hot and boiling. The beginnings of tears, of proving his father right. Diego swallows, pictures what it is that he wants to say and takes his time. It’s a show of strength, of confidence in his words; not weakness. 

“You said I should im-prove m-my speech. She offers assist-ance.”  _ She, _ not  _ Mom.  _ Because Mom would stick in his mouth like glue, remove the letter  _ M  _ where possible.  _ D  _ too,  _ C  _ if you can. Slow it down, break it into pieces, don’t let him catch you in another failure. 

“Does she offer assistance to your siblings?” He does not give Diego the opportunity to answer and his siblings do not bother, chins tucked to their chests. All except Luther, who remains ramrod straight like a leader  _ supervising, _ and Five, who observes the scene as though it is an equation that puzzles him. 

“Why is it that your siblings, even Number Seven, can speak near five languages sufficiently, and you cannot manage to speak a single one of them without spitting your words out like a belligerent infant?”

“I speak five too! Alm-most si-six, but-- ”

“But  _ what,  _ Number Two? Stumbling pathetically through phrases that you read at the pace of an eight year old does not equate to speech that is in any way adequate.”

_ Two insignificant powers do not equate to one that is worthy of my time, child. _

Three, now. Three powers and a polyglot, and he is still unworthy. 

“I c- _ can, _ I…”

“Well, since you are so confident in your abilities, why don’t you offer us some dinner time reading?” Not a request, but a twisted demand. 

How did it become this? A throwaway claim on Allison’s part, consequence heaped atop his shoulders, and for  _ what?  _ Thinking outside the box? Saving lives?

“Start from the beginning. All three pages.” 

Luther stiffens next to him and Klaus groans. Five slouches in his seat and Vanya’s eyes haven’t left her lap. Ben smiles when Diego casts his gaze around, desperate for any kind of escape, fight or flight. 

But when his eyes land on Allison, where she sits to their father’s left, a single tear winding like a river down the plane of her cheek, something bitter and resentful coils in his chest and pinches at the empty space where the oxygen should be. 

Diego stands, dinner growing ever colder beneath him, and takes the magazine when Luther passes it to him. He flicks through the pages, faking calm, idly admiring the images the photographer took of them, posing like a  _ real  _ family, like  _ best  _ friends, like  _ real  _ kids who live in the  _ real  _ world and aren’t expected to know five languages perfectly before the age of fourteen. 

“None of you are permitted to leave until Number Two has finished reading this  _ frivolous  _ piece.”

No one dares to interrupt. Not a peep or a chuckle as Diego reads, measured at first, and choking soon after. A grapple that is more difficult than any physical fight he has faced, that has his chest burning for air despite not needing any. His cheeks burn in a savage blaze, flushing the skin of his chest beneath the starch of his shirt and the scratchy wool of his sweater. 

He cries, that much he can recall. Fat, hot tears, unlike Allison’s crocodile ones, catch on the corner of his mouth and curve the line of his jaw. When the salty taste reaches his tongue, it is the bath he thinks of, and his skull pulses with the effort to stop crying; not because it’s worsening his stutter, slowing his reading down by a vast amount, making his siblings uncomfortable, but because the bath is a place that he has not been in quite a long time, and he does not wish to go back there. Not now.

When Dad leaves, two pages in, bored by the whole thing and unwilling to waste his time, Diego keeps reading. His siblings do not leave, it does not occur to them. 

They think within the box, and always will, for that is where their father has trapped them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw:  
> \- ableism  
> \- emotional and physical abuse of a child
> 
> this chapter got wayyyy too long, so i decided to split it. part 2 should be on its way soon!
> 
> also, take it as a given that each time diego meets someone new, it's likely that he'll introduce himself in this manner ( _hello, my name is diego_ ). it's a method of working around his stutter and working with letters and sounds he can handle, also not having one of his most troubling letters at the start of the sentence can help. it's said in a single breath, despite how odd that may seem initially, but it's something he will get better at with age. 
> 
> also also, the comments on the last chapter made my heart soar. i've never gotten this far with a fic before and i hope to continue for quite a bit (as i have a huge amount planned out), so your support and the time you take to comment means the world!
> 
> more diego and allison next chapter, that's something to look forward to. thank u so much again xxx


	9. blue.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diego does not think, he does not dip his toe. 
> 
> He plunges. 
> 
> A dive from the bridge in a slick arc. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which the author questions her sanity for almost 9k words and is soft for numbers two and three

Training’s a  _ bitch.  _

That’s a word he learned from Tammy, a lady in Florida who keeps succulents and furniture that is exclusively pink. When she yells, it bounces around the Void like there are walls somewhere in the infinite black. Diego doesn’t like her, she screams at the television and he can’t hear what the people on screen are saying, but she’s funny, and it’s because of her that he’s been able to best Klaus so often when they share their bad words during their weekly free time.

Not that Diego is entirely certain what a  _ bitch  _ is, but he knows that it’s what training feels like. He’s bone tired, muscles tight and sore from an evening spent under the floorboards in Dad’s study, pieces of paper pinched and crumpled between his fingers, with dates and places and faces that he doesn’t know, that he’ll  _ never  _ know. 

Sometimes, Dad wants him to find important people: old men in suits and women who are always writing and signing things like Dad does at his desk, while Diego swims through the Void beneath him. Other times, there is no agenda. Or no clear one, at least -- Diego is told to look for the mundane: to find a man in Prague, a woman in Brisbane, a child in St. Petersberg, crying for their mother next to a market stall that sells pretty bracelets that Klaus and Allison would like. 

Dad actually paired him with Allison for this combat session, made a point of it. It’s not like Diego’s about to lose himself in his anger towards her, but it’s there, it looms over him and weighs him down like a dark cloud. She really screwed him over in that interview, probably over something  _ dumb  _ like knocking Luther on his ass during training. 

Those are words he’s learned in the Void too. 

He imagines that, from the outside, what she did and said about him doesn’t seem like that big a deal. But Allison had noticed Dad’s increased disdain with Diego; she notices everything. 

Like what words he finds himself getting stuck on the most, so she can cut across him and interrupt what he was about to say. Like how Ben helps Diego with his studies and Diego, in return, helps him out with his roundhouse kick (with not crying so much when people bleed). 

She notices how he clings to Mom, how he favours certain siblings for how they make him feel. How he prefers Vanya sometimes, over her. How he’ll play with Klaus no problem, but dips out the second Allison tries to insert herself into their imaginary scenario. How he goes to Five when he’s scared, not Luther.  _ Never  _ Luther. 

Allison sees all this and makes note. In a journal maybe, more personal and less rambling and senseless than his own. Less read by Dad; possibly not read by Dad at all. 

He stretches out on the mat, aware of this. Of the intel she has on Diego and his weaknesses. Of how Allison is probably the second best fighter to him, powers aside. Perhaps that’s why Dad paired them: because Allison never likes to hurt Klaus, and because Luther and Diego sparring always ends the same way. 

Diego knows that this is not why Dad paired them, but he’ll pretend.

She catches him in the gut with a swift kick and Diego engages his core as best he can before impact. It’s bruising, but not enough of a distraction that he doesn’t take initiative, grab her by the foot and twist. Allison yelps, palms hitting the mat with a resounding slam, and Diego lets his smugness get the better of him, gives her enough of a window to knock his knees out from under him and send him careening onto the mat too. 

“ _ Focus,  _ Number Two!” Dad yells, before turning back to Luther and Five. 

Diego flies backwards, can’t slow the fall in any way, and knocks the back of his head on impact. He’s dazed, black spots float across his vision, perhaps a side effect of semi-regular concussions, and his lip is bleeding from where his teeth caught it upon landing. 

Above him, Allison sits, knees either side of his torso and trapping his arms. He kicks up in an attempt to get rid of her, to have the upperhand once more, and he’s stronger than Allison, he knows that, but she has him pinned and his head is smarting something awful. 

She sneers then, besting him so quickly gives her the right to, though that doesn’t stop Diego from sneering in return. 

“Say  _ mercy. _ ” Allison says, smiling down at him. Like they’re okay again, or as okay as they can be in this house. “I’ll let you have the next one, since you’re all woozy.”

“Nah.” Diego responds, the curve of his mouth mirroring her own. “I’ll get-  _ get  _ you back.”

-:-

“I can’t believe I got Luther, I mean what is up with that? Do these people know  _ anything? _ ” 

Klaus has no concept of Mom’s often requested _ inside voice,  _ but Diego would recognise his approach to Allison’s bedroom regardless. He can feel his brother’s direction, though he can’t see it, how he waves something around in his hand; a magazine probably, the one with their interview and quiz in it. 

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I got Diego. Maybe it’s cosmic payback for getting him in trouble with Dad.”

Allison is lighter in her gait, but evident nonetheless. They both enter the room, but right before they do, Diego inhales once, a brief thing, and holds his breath in his chest. He does not move, his eyes remaining closed. Allison’s rug is scratchy against his bare legs, but it’s not like he’ll be laying on the floor for long. 

“At least Diego is rebellious, Luther is _ boring. _ Do you think I’m a square, Allie? Be honest.”

“Luther’s not a square. He’s responsi-- Diego?”

“Weird place to take a nap, bro.”

“Klaus, he’s not sleeping, he’s _ unconscious. _ ” Allison says, voice breaking on the last syllable. “He hit his head during training, I…”

Allison drops to her knees, no doubt receiving burns from the carpet, and frantically scrambles at his clothing. Diego thinks that she might whimper, for a moment, something soft that she plays up into a broken sound, because someone could be listening. She’s distressed, has to appear to be, not that he can see her because his eyes are remaining resolutely closed. 

“I don’t think he’s breathing.” She holds a finger beneath his nostrils and, of course, nothing comes out. Because Diego can do this for hours, for days, if he has to. 

He can feel how the air shifts around Klaus, quick movements, like he’s looking anywhere but Diego, but it’s hard to tell because Allison is yanking at him, distracting him, looking for a pulse, maybe.

“His pulse is weak, go-- Klaus! Focus, _ please. _ You need to stay calm. Go get Mom, okay?”

Klaus leaves in a haphazard slamming of his feet against the floors and it’s just Allison left. Diego expects her to quit it with the waterworks, but the tears still stream steadily, landing on his face and neck as she leans over him, small cries hiccuping into the otherwise silent room. 

“I didn’t mean for you to hit your head, I’m so  _ sorry. _ ” She gasps, fingers tugging at his collar like it will give him room to breathe. 

“ _ I heard a rumour _ that you were okay.” 

But he is okay, so nothing happens. 

“ _ I heard a rumour _ that you  _ are  _ okay… I-- ”

It’s not funny, not at all. And a small part of Diego thinks that maybe he ought to cut this prank short. That he’s gotten what he wanted out of it, and then some, but then he remembers how he and Allison exist with one another. Numbers Two and Three are not tender, they are severe and rigid, parallel lines, sniping, cutting remarks and shoves between corridors. 

Like when Allison makes fun of how he talks, parrots it back like him not being able to string a sentence together is hilarious. Or when she hangs out with Luther and the pair of them act like he doesn’t exist. Diego does not label it, but it’s hot and sickening in the way that jealousy can be. Jealousy of One and Three and their united strength, how Diego can’t work with either of them without rubbing them up the wrong way.

Later, when he is much older, Diego will recognise his and Allison’s anger for what it is: not resentment or hate for one another, but for their  _ situation, _ both knowing that the other is the only one with enough strength to take it. Or thinking as much when it’s not at all true. Because they are the same, in multiple regards. They are hardened, unfairly, in many ways that their siblings are not. 

Klaus’ footsteps sound on the corridor, accompanied by the measured clicking of Mom’s heels. There is a panicked string of words from Klaus followed by a laugh, light and airy, like the one Mom uses when one of them tells a joke that they read in a book somewhere.

“Oh,  _ boys will be boys! _ ”

“Mom, do something! He’s not breathing!” Allison yells, tilting Diego’s chin back like she’s about to give him mouth to mouth herself if someone doesn’t act soon. 

“Diego doesn’t need to breathe, silly. Up you get now, darling.” Mom crouches to jostle him slightly and if it weren’t for the imminent fear of Allison’s attempt at first aid, he might not have followed his mother’s orders at all. 

Diego’s eyes open as he sits up, wanting to laugh to lighten the atmosphere but not liking how it feels in the base of his throat. Because when he looks at Allison, she’s _ crying. _ When he looks at Klaus, he’s  _ shaking.  _

“Now, that wasn’t very nice of you, was it, Diego? Giving your brother and sister a fright like that.” 

Mom helps him up off the floor as he lets the breath in his chest go. He wobbles a little -- which probably stops Allison and Klaus from launching at him so soon -- because he’s still dizzy from earlier, because he  _ never  _ gets enough sleep. 

“Say you’re sorry, Diego. Your brother and sister were very upset.”

He’s about to say it when Allison interrupts, as always, cutting across like she doesn’t have the time to waste on him. Only this time it’s different, because she’s wiping furiously at her eyes, because her lips are puffy, because her nose is running. Klaus passes her a hanky and she swats it away. 

“I wasn’t  _ upset. _ ” Allison says, glaring. “I don’t even  _ care. _ It was a dumb game and I was playing along. Humouring him and his stupid, little trick.”

“Allison, dear, your heart rate has increased a startling amount and you're both shaking.” Klaus shoves his hands into his pockets when Mom says this, like he doesn’t want to be caught out. Allison balls hers into fists at her sides, resolute, unmoving.

“I’ll go and warm you all a cup of milk. It will help ease the nerves.” And Mom is gone, leaving the three of them, standing equal measures apart, on the bedroom floor. 

“Get out of my room, Two.” Allison says, pointing to the door, hands still shaking, but probably for another reason entirely. 

“I’m so-sor-- ”

“ _ Get out. _ ”

-:-

“I’m not really upset with you, Twoots.”

Klaus corners him as he’s about to leave for a session with Dad. Diego is wearing nothing but shorts and one of his t-shirts from training. It gets so hot under the floorboards. 

“Sure, what you did was gross, and I think Allie is  _ way  _ more upset than she’d ever let on.” Klaus puts enough emphasis on how upset Allison truly is that it makes something cold lurch in Diego’s gut. 

“But it was pretty funny, and if you were a ghost we’d still get to hang out all the time. You wouldn’t have even looked gross or anything!” He breaks off into a hum, part of a song that Diego does not know. “ _ Together forever. _ ”

Diego nods, smiles, leaves his brother in the corridor so he won’t be late for personal training. And, not for the first time, Diego counts himself lucky that  _ his  _ ghosts only visit him in the Void. 

-:-

It goes like this.

Diego pretty much lives in the Void now, dipping in and out like he’s visiting distant family. He goes there when it’s quiet, when the air is dark and damp and all that fills his ears is the din of woolly static. 

Dad doesn’t really like it when Diego goes there in his sleep, but it happens regardless. He’s always stuck these sensors to their heads while they slept and it messes with that. No one talks about it but everyone knows. Monitoring brain activity, reading energy, constantly trying to find something else he can use them for. 

There are screens too, that Dad sits him in front of; restrains him, sometimes. People walking down the street, down the aisles of superstores, swiping gum from a street vendor when they’re facing the wrong direction, hurting each other, smiling, touching with kinds of affection that Diego cannot comprehend. 

Diego falls asleep sometimes and that makes Dad angry. Like he’s messed up, missed something really crucial that required his absolute attention. But it’s like 4am and he trains for at least five hours almost  _ every  _ day. 

It’s fine, it’s easier. Than the bath, at least. But everything feels easier than that. 

It’s late fall and the only time Diego has touched water recently is to shower, because Klaus is the only one who bathes now. Pretends he’s a mermaid, even though they’re all thirteen and far too old for that kind of thing. Sometimes he’ll ask Diego to sit on the toilet seat and keep him company; because ghosts can swim, apparently. 

And it could be that he's jinxed himself, because when the moment finally comes for Diego to take the plunge, they’re not even on a mission. 

They had spent the day at the governors’ mansion, an invitation extended to them for afternoon tea upon providing additional security detail for the president’s state visit. It was all cucumber sandwiches and a million different flavours of cake. Diego doesn’t particularly like tea, and if he does, it’s only the peppermint kind Mom makes to settle Ben’s stomach, but it was okay.  _ Nothing to write home about.  _ If that means what he thinks it means. 

In the car, Diego is sitting next to Five, who’s sitting beside Ben. Luther and Allison are ahead of them with Klaus squashed in between. Allison won’t look at him, no matter how many times he kicks the back of her chair. Vanya is at home with Mom and Pogo, having not received an invitation because she hadn’t done any protecting. Diego has a piece of cake wrapped in a napkin for her that he managed to sneak into his pocket when everyone else was too distracted by Allison’s desire for attention. It’s getting squashed with every jolt of Hermes, but he doesn’t think she’ll mind. 

Until Hermes screeches to a grinding halt that sends Diego careening forward in his seat because he, like both Klaus and Five, never wears his seatbelt right. 

“Woah…” 

Whatever has happened is only recent, the traffic not having yet built up to block the general public from the danger zone. About fifty feet from where Hermes has skidded to a stop, there is a fiery buildup of approximately five cars, lumped together in the middle of the bridge, while two, that must have been sent flying upon impact, dangle precariously from the bridge’s edge. 

Dad doesn’t need to yell at them to spring into action, because they know it’s their responsibility. This is the kind of thing they’re supposed to do -- not guarding the president when he’s already got like ten guys prepared to take a bullet for him, and Diego’s not entirely sure he can curve them properly yet anyways.

The other three get out first, Luther leading the charge, muttering to Allison briefly before giving everyone else a nod, an unspoken agreement. Like they’re ready for this. Like they’ll be able to cope with this at all. 

“Two, you’re with me.”

When exiting the car, Diego almost forgets to put his domino mask back on. It’s Klaus who hands it to him, pretending to polish it with a huff of breath and the scrub of his elbow. Diego can only thank him with a smile before he’s off on Luther’s tail, to help in any way he can, not knowing yet exactly what that will mean. 

Allison has taken to rumouring the crowd back, already forming an invisible barricade that will keep everyone out of the fray. 

Five has jumped ahead, is stood at the car’s trunk, and when Diego gets closer he sees how Five looks like he’s about to glitch. The gears are churning in his mind for all to see, how Five knows that he can’t use his powers to jump people out of the vehicle, because his sudden appearance in it will cause too much of an imbalance with the weight. 

Luther grabs for the bumper of the first car, while Five and Diego go for the second. They’re not exactly the strongest and Ben could certainly do better with the help of the Horror, but he’s otherwise occupied, with the blood and the screaming, and trying to alleviate some weight from the pile up. 

There is only so much Ben and his tentacles can do alone, particularly when he’s not accustomed to the crowds and the distraction they provide for the beast that travels through his stomach. Diego considers for a moment that Ben would be better off tugging this car back up with his tentacles, but then he remembers that Ben is smaller than the rest of them, almost as small as Vanya, and has frightening visions of his brother being dragged off the bridge by a weight that is fine for the Horror, but far too heavy for him. 

They did not plan for this mission, no briefing was given. They weren’t ready to slip into the roles of superheroes just yet, only fresh from a day of leisure. So it stands to reason that Luther would make to help their struggling brother, but not before heaving his own car with its own inhabitants up onto the bridge, like it’s no big deal at all. 

Five gives Diego a nod before letting go too, perhaps giving Number Two’s strength in comparison to One’s far too much credit. Perhaps thinking that Diego and the fast approaching aid of Klaus will be enough to ensure that these people won’t plummet to their deaths in the icy depths of the river. 

It’s not like the balance of the car is precarious. The front wheels hang off the bridge’s edge by a fair amount, but hardly half of the body itself is tipping over. Diego is holding it in place more than anything, though there is only so much a thirteen year old can do. Absently, he bristles at being left with a job so mundane, one that lacks the crash and fire of a five car build up. 

Klaus bounds forwards to help him, pushes the heels of his hands down on the bumper with the full weight of his body. 

“Shall I sit on it? Do you think that would help?” As if he doesn’t weigh one hundred pounds soaking wet. 

Diego shakes his head, vehemently. Though Klaus plants his bottom on the bumper regardless, slipping from the slim edge and onto the chipped asphalt. 

“Help m-mm-- pull this up.”

Diego wishes he could say more than that. Wishes to tell the family in the car and their crying children to stay still, to trust him, that they are safe. But to do so would be an empty promise. 

Because when he and Klaus make use of their strength and conditioning training and attempt to pull the car back up onto the bridge with all the might of their Number One, the man -- the father, the husband, the driver -- does not think. 

The click of his seatbelt sounds like the shot of a gun. His intentions were likely great, likely to help lift his children towards the back of the car, to calm them, to help his wife escape ahead of him. But they are of little matter when the release of his seatbelt causes gravity to kick into overdrive and send him flying forwards and directly into the windshield; which cracks and fissures with the weight of a grown man hitting it with such force. 

The wife screams and the children cry. The putrid smell of vomit and blood wafts from inside the car and Diego is certain that he and Klaus will lose their fingernails with the effort that it is taking to hold it up. 

“Stop moving!” Klaus yells at them, struggling to gain purchase on the car’s smooth hatchback.

The bumper rips slowly from the trunk of the car with a piercing screech. His siblings must hear it, for Diego can’t hear anything else. In an aborted motion, husband and wife reach for one another, as if he can move, as if the pop of her seatbelt opening and the grasping for their children will suspend the laws of gravity for long enough that they can guarantee the safety of their children on solid ground. 

People do the strangest of things in times of imminent death. 

She flies forward, just as her husband did. Klaus screams, fingers coming away a bloody mess as the bumper slips from his grip. As the bumper finally rips free of the car’s tail. As Five appears in a flash of blue in his periphery. As Allison yells his name like a warning, like begging, like something is hurting her as it claws its way up her throat. As the children inside scream and the mother sobs and Diego wonders if his own Mom can cry. If she’d cry at all, if what he’s about to do does not work. 

All of these things happen at once. 

The car wrenches from his grip, takes a piece of it with him as it falls. An entire family trapped inside with the promise of death. 

Diego does not think, he does not dip his toe. 

He plunges. 

A dive from the bridge in a slick arc. 

Somehow, he matches the car’s pace as it falls, moves to be just shy of where it lands with a grand splash in the water, bubbling violently as it submerges, as Diego feels the ice cold hit him, surround him, and shock him into stillness for longer than he’d ever admit. 

When he regains his senses, remembers to hold the final gasp of breath that he managed to suck in, he swims with all of his might. Unfortunately, the Void sidetracked Diego’s later swimming training, and he’s only received as many lessons as his siblings have in the last few years. But it will have to suffice, for both parents have broken free of the windshield, though the mother’s jacket has caught on a protruding piece of metal, and both children are still trapped inside the car as it falls to the river bed. 

There is blood, Diego can see that much. It clouds in the water, far more than he’s accustomed to coming from his nose. His only reprieve is the sunlight that beams from above, painting the water a shimmery aqua, sparkling with the burst of glass that drifts from the car’s broken windshield. 

In this way, the water of the river is nothing like the bath. It’s murky and iridescent and clouded, almost frozen in places, but seemingly limitless. He swims for the children first, because their lungs are smaller, because he has no doubt that they must be so frightened; if they are still conscious at all. 

He makes short work of the distance between himself and the car, swift kicks that have his palms colliding with the glass of the backseat windows in seconds. Inside, one child -- a boy, three perhaps, as Diego hasn’t seen many children and cannot recall how he or his siblings looked at that age -- looks as though he is simply napping. Small bubbles of air pass between his mouth, and the icy temperature of the water has turned his lips purple. Next to him, in another booster seat, there is a girl, slightly older, cheeks puffed out in a panicked attempt at holding onto the air in her chest. Then, mouth trying and failing to kiss the car’s ceiling as the vehicle fills with water. 

Contrary to what people might think, Diego knows exactly how that feels. 

The busted windshield has ruined everything, and cut his time for saving the kids by approximately half. Briefly checking the mother’s pulse as he passes her, and noting the father’s location, Diego carefully makes his way through the broken mess that is the windshield, knowing that the children are priority. That he is making the right call here. 

As he squeezes his way between the front seats and does his best at extracting the little boy, he feels for a pulse and finds one that is thready, but present. Pressing the boy close to his chest, folding him into the lining of his blazer, Diego unbuckles the sister’s belt and catches her in his other arm, tilting both childrens’ heads towards the sliver of air that is slowly dwindling at the car’s ceiling. 

The girl takes a gulp, but no matter the amount of coaxing Diego does -- rubbing the boy’s chest with his fist, attempting to open his airways -- nothing happens. He propels himself backwards then, a panicked flurry of bubbles filling the water. Knowing that the electric windows will not open, he has no choice but to make his way back through the windshield, hoping that the fabric of his blazer will cushion the pair from receiving any additional injuries. 

A foolish part of him, one that wishes he were bigger, stronger like his brother, thinks for a moment that maybe he can grab the mother too, where she floats, stuck to the car and bleeding into the fog of the water, but the little boy hasn’t woken up and he can only do so much all by himself. 

He kicks then, with all his might, body fueled by adrenaline, the only thing that’s keeping him going. The girl clings, head lolling, and his panic amplifies. Because time passes in a way that lacks sense when Diego is beneath the water. His speed increases and his lungs burn and the light of the sky grows ever closer as he holds fast to both children and hopes that they will join him in taking a grand gasp upon encountering air once more. 

He kicks and kicks but when Diego breaches the surface, his mouth remains closed. The air that was sucked into his lungs during his almighty dive remains. But the girl heaves, gripping his shirt and the hair at the nape of his neck, kicking her short legs in an attempt to help him speed up their approach to the river bank. 

“Jorge, wake up!  _ Come on! _ ” She yells, the puff of her thick winter coat crowding around her chin. 

There is an ambulance on the shore, from what Diego can tell, an entire crowd of people culminating on the muddy bank, though he doesn’t recognise his siblings among them. Nor his father. He swims closer and a paramedic, he thinks, meets him halfway, waist deep in the water and ready to take the children from his grasp. It is a struggle, with the weight of them and the effort of keeping both their heads above water, but he manages to pass them over, feet meeting the grit of the river’s floor so he can stand, helping the girl paddle over, holding onto the boy for fear of letting the cold in. 

“I tried to-- to keep him w-w-warm, I- ” Diego says, finally exhaling, air passing in and out of his lungs in uneven measures. 

“You did good, son, now c’mon back to shore.” 

The paramedic takes both children, trudging through the water as fast as he can. With his back to Diego, there is a window for his second attempt, and Diego takes it quickly, rushing back into the water and diving under with a quiet splash. If the people scream at him to return, he does not hear them.

He kicks his shoes off as he swims, knowing his father will scold him for it later, and pushes against the force of the current in attempts to relocate the childrens’ parents. 

He follows their strings, thin and wavering as they are, and hones in on the woman first. Still, she is tethered to the car, her string tangling as she bobs up and down in the water, floating by the shreds of her coat. Diego extracts one of his many knives and works at cutting the thick fabric. He hacks at it, hoping to speed up the process. Who knows how long she had been down here, Diego cannot keep track, so he works faster, without care for safely handling his knife. The blade catches on his fingers, though it does not sting like the salt water he is accustomed to, so he hardly notices. Instead focused on freeing the woman, catching her around the waist, and searching for her husband before remembering the tick of the clock and prioritising yet again. 

She is heavier than the children, and though Diego is taller than half of his brothers and both his sisters (sort of), he can do no more than drag her towards the surface. He cannot protect her from the floating debris, nor can he check that she is still alive, no. He has to keep moving, pulling her up like a limp ragdoll, and when he does manage to get above water, he can hardly stay afloat with the weight of her dragging him down. 

“Two, hold on!” It’s Luther, swimming towards him, Academy shirt and blazer discarded, shoes no doubt safe on the shore. 

He reaches Diego in no time at all, and it is only when he sees his brother’s lips having turned blue so fast that he can finally feel how cold the water is. He gasps as he struggles to keep the woman upright, arms under her own, kicking with all his might. And when Luther removes her from his hold, the weight of her head lolling against his chest finally gone, Diego can breathe again, if only for a minute. 

“How many people were in the car?” Luther asks, shaking, though with minimal effort, he manages to tilt the woman’s head backwards over his shoulder to open her airways. 

“There’s w-w--a  _ man. _ Dow-Down there.” Diego responds, clenching his jaw so Luther won’t see how violently his teeth are chattering. The water splashes between them, seeming to rise and become more tumultuous. Diego kicks higher so that it does not swallow him up. “I’m go-go-- back.  _ Down. _ ”

“No, it’s been like fifteen minutes, Diego. You have to come back with me  _ now. _ ” 

Luther never calls him that on missions: Diego. It’s strictly numbers, but the woman is unconscious, so it’s not like anyone can hear. The look he gives Diego says more than the use of the name his mother gave to him, and for the briefest of moments, he can see that Luther is worried for him, not the mission. That he doesn’t know fifteen minutes is nothing for Diego, that he’s held his breath for entire nights, while Luther has remained wrapped up in bed beneath a sky of glow in the dark stars. 

“Get her b-ba-- safe.” The woman isn’t breathing, they don’t have time for this. They never do. “I’m fine,  _ Luther. _ ”

And he’s gone again, before Luther can try and stop him. They’ve already wasted enough time and he’s not about to risk that little girl losing everyone, when her brother won’t wake up and her mother isn’t even breathing. 

The cold hits him harder this time, he ought to be used to it by now. Dad had realised fairly early on, through his numerous examinations even  _ before  _ the bath, that Diego’s average body temperature would have given most people hypothermia. But his limbs seize regardless, shock threatening to overwhelm his body and keep him prone. He has to overcome it and get back to the car, some kind of starting point for finding the man, but each stroke he swims becomes harder than the last and his chest burns fiercely, with a kind of white hot feeling that he’s never before encountered. The bath doesn’t allow for such things, but Diego must detach from it, must forget the old ways and adapt to the new ones; where his power means more than finding people and not being able to save them. 

He tries to focus, hone his concentration in on locating the man, but there are thousands of strings that litter the river, thousands of objects moving and swirling, and then man is not one of them. He closes his eyes, squeezes them tight to absolute blackness, presses his palms tight over his ears despite the resounding silence that has already engulfed him. 

Diego floats, and he searches, knowing that to open his eyes and physically examine the wide expanse of the river bed would be useless. Knowing the infinite expanse of the Void is within his reach; is a place he can look, and find, and maybe, for once,  _ save.  _

It happens then, rather quickly, as the current pushes him further down. Something in his ears pops and Diego’s nerves scream. His vision fills with a rush of white before settling to a black once more. A place where both feet can touch the ground and the water is shallow as it wets his soles. 

He drips into the Void, river water and blood, though he’s not sure that it is his own. He does not hear it, for this time everything is silent, but he feels it, the scarlet drops welling, leaking between his toes, dripping down his neck and spoiling his uniform beyond repair. 

For a moment, Diego thinks he is alone. That the Void has brought him here for no reason other than the fact that he is likely unconscious. But then he sees it. 

Sees _him._

A mass on the wet floor, curled in on itself, clothes sopping wet with dirty water and splotches of crimson. Caught beneath something, because the man’s body somehow floats a few inches off the Void’s version of ground before being pulled back down with a wet _ splash.  _

Diego runs to him, his own bloodied fingers reaching for water-mottled flesh only to pass right through the man’s form. He tries again, swiping to pull him up, to turn him over, to check his pulse, but the result is always the same. 

The man dissolves between his fingers like smoke. 

The man. The woman’s husband. Children's father. Jorge whose lips are blue, just like that of his fathers; whose eyes won’t open. The man who only wanted to comfort his wife and children when he inadvertently sent them all crashing to their deaths.

Diego can’t  _ save  _ him, not here in the Void. Not in the river, where he still floats. Even the car has been lost to the water’s depths. 

His chest aches and his eyes throb and Diego can’t _ breathe,  _ but he needs to,  _ desperately.  _ Needs to rid his vision of this failure, of this life lost because he wasn’t  _ fast  _ enough,  _ good  _ enough, couldn’t follow the strings as they tangled and strained to find this man and bring him back to his fractured family. 

He can’t hold on any longer, so the water floods his lungs. It’s a quick thing that sends him reeling out of the black and into the water’s winter blue. His shirts constricts him as he scrambles for the surface, any direction that feels right because he can no longer tell which way is up; not when black begins to cloud his vision once more like blotches of ink leaking puddles onto paper. 

Diego doesn’t remember reaching the surface, but he remembers a tentacle wrapping around his torso and squeezing so that for a moment Diego thinks that he truly might die. Instead it is Ben who has found control, who eases Diego back to the shore like a floating ring working with the current. 

The water is waist high around Ben, around Luther who waits at his side. On the shore, Diego can just about make out a mass of shapes, moving all at once then not at all, flashing lights shining bright against the darkening horizon. 

“It’s okay. You’re okay.” Luther says, grabbing him, holding him, as Ben’s tentacles retract and it is both brothers supporting him at either side and not an interdimensional beast that is bringing him back to shore. 

Embarrassingly, Diego’s feet flounder beneath him, tipped to the side due to Ben’s smaller stature. Water laps against the walls of his chest as Klaus splashes towards them, crashing and grasping Diego’s face between his hands, kissing each cheek even though his mouth comes away red with blood both times. He swims in Diego’s vision, smile wide, eyes watering. 

Diego wonders if what he said earlier was even the slightest bit true. 

“They all said you were dead but I said  _ no, no way, _ because there was no ghost, right? You’re fine, I  _ knew  _ you’d be fine!”

Diego nods, but his head takes it to mean something else and he pitches forward, forehead colliding with Klaus’ shoulder. 

Ben whimpers, struggling to keep his end up, so Luther takes the wheel, and under any other circumstances, Diego would be devastated by the thoughts of Number One carrying him to shore (to their father) like a bride on her wedding day, but his head won’t stay upright and his eyes are burning and his ears are screaming and the water is still lapping in his chest. 

_ Splish, splosh. _

“Put him down here.” That’s Five, sharp and efficient. Irritated, which means he is anxious. “In the  _ recovery position, _ Luther. _ Jesus. _ ”

Where Diego expects to meet soggy ground, there is the sticky feeling of a rubber mattress, a gurney perhaps. Fingers run through his hair, curl around his upward facing ear, and he jolts forward, almost sending himself off the gurney. 

“Diego, you have to  _ breathe. _ ” It’s Allison. When he opens his eyes, there she is, a bitter parody of their earlier incident. _Karma_ is what Klaus would call it. Diego deserves this. 

He tries to, inhales and chokes on all of the bad things that have accumulated in his chest. Around him, his siblings reach uselessly for something to do; Luther’s arm frozen mid-air as if readying to pat his back before recalling the damage it will inevitably do. 

Paramedics hover on their periphery, blocked by the barricade of his siblings. The Hargreeves do not know what to do with this external help, they’re not accustomed to it. 

“Try coughing.” Five says, rubbing his back in an uncharacteristic display of comfort, the kind that only ever found Diego on nights when they were little, when their home felt too big, felt not like a home at all. 

So he does and something in his chest fractures so violently that a scream rips from his throat with all of the water and bile. His siblings manage to back away just in time, avoiding the mess, only to crowd around him once more as his body heaves with uneven breaths. Panicked ones, because he failed, because they can all  _ see  _ how he failed. The whole  _ world  _ can. 

“It’s okay, you know.” Allison says, fingers retracting from his scalp. He misses it. “They revived the little boy and the mother had a pulse before they brought her to the hospital. The girl is fine too. Great, in fact.”

“Wouldn’t shut up about you.” Five grumbles, but a smile cracks his surly demeanor. 

“You were under there for, like, forty minutes.” Ben says, fiddling with the hem of his torn shirt, soot smeared across his cheeks. It felt like a quarter of that to Diego. He doesn’t understand. “We thought…”

“I’m o-k-kay.” Diego’s voice crawls from this throat, ragged and scratchy. An ugly thing, though his dignity has been entirely scrapped at this point and he is too tired to care. “I just-- I couldn’t say-save him, the ma-ma- _ man. _ ”

“You did your best.” Luther smiles down at him. “And then some.”

“I fou- I found him.” Dead, a shell, left to the fish and the rot of the riverbed. To bloat and shrivel and live, wide-eyed, in Diego’s dreams. “I d-did, but he w-w-was go-gone.”

Klaus speaks then, gaze to the right of their bunched group, looking at absolutely nothing. 

“He doesn’t mind. You saved his family, Twoots. That’s all he wanted.”

“Oh… I-- ”

“Less of the blubbering, children.” Dad cuts him off, approaching from higher up on the river’s bank. Busy elsewhere, clearly. There is a part of Diego that hates him for this, that longs for a father who’d fret over his life. There is another part that is tinted with pride -- that Dad had enough faith in him to know that he wouldn’t die. That he’d be  _ okay.  _

He feels sick with himself. 

“You have caused enough of a fuss, Number Two. To the car, children.” He dismisses, though they remain where they stand as Diego rights himself on the gurney, sitting up to follow his father’s order as he addresses him directly. 

“Do leave the dramatics behind, yes? We are both well aware of the fact that you have survived longer in colder conditions and will continue to do so after this  _ appalling  _ display of your abilities.”

“Yes, S-SS-Sir.”

Klaus holds a hand out, though Diego does not take it. His balance is shot and his ears still burn, but Luther’s grasp on his shoulder is weighty and grounds him as far as the car.

The cake in his pocket has no doubt turned to mush, and it is only then that Diego wishes to cry. He doesn’t dare to; his inevitable return to the bath will be punishment enough. 

-:-

Mom cuts his hair that evening, over the bathroom sink. Chunks of mahogany falling to the floor, pooling around his ankles in goading defeat. He doesn’t cry, because hair grows back, only to be cut and grown back again. Only to be cut and such is the cycle of Diego’s life. 

In the doorway he sees Klaus, bottom lip pulled between his teeth, bandaged fingers worrying the hem of his damp shirt because he hasn’t changed yet. Diego hasn’t changed yet either, he wasn’t permitted to. 

He is only going to get wet again anyway. 

Klaus’ eyes are full of something that Diego does not wish to recognise. A kind of understanding that neither of them ought to be able to feel with one another. 

Diego knows that Dad makes Klaus do things, things that frighten him and have him screaming well into the early morning, but Klaus’ hair is long enough to curl around the shell of his ear, to bounce on his head as he bounds down the stairs after morning lessons. 

It’s childish, to envy such a thing, but Diego has learned in his thirteen years that any semblance of control in his life is forever bound to be slight, unimaginably so, and it is the little things that matter the most. 

He simply wants to look like the rest of them. 

Klaus vanishes before Mom is finished, like he can’t stand the sight of it anymore. Diego wants to curl in on himself, on his aches and pains and the constant ringing that has not left his ears, but rest will not find him tonight, no. The bath will be his bed until sunrise. 

“There, darling, all done!” She removes the towel from his shoulders with a flourish and brushes any stray hairs from his face and neck. “My handsome boy.”

When Mom holds the mirror up for Diego to see, he all but flinches at his own reflection. He looks smaller now, a blank thing, devoid of any striking characteristics beyond his bare scalp and sulky expression. Beyond the scratches on his face and neck, cleaned and bandaged by Mom, the pink tinge on his skin from blood that refuses to wash off, that screams of a mission failed.

He is not the  _ bad boy, _ or _ the one with the knives.  _ He is not  _ Diego, _ or _ brother, _ or  _ son  _ or  _ friend.  _ He is Number Two. 

Number Two who belongs in the bath. Whose home is the Void once more. 

“Thanks, Mom.”

It’s been so long since his last visit to the bath that none of his swim suits fit. Diego doesn’t bother changing from his uniform, though he is not even offered the option. He trudges past his siblings’ rooms and follows the familiar path on autopilot. 

Mom does not accompany him, for he is bigger now and it’s bed time and she has to make sure that the others are resting. She doesn’t close their doors or stop them from peering out at him as he passes, shoes squeaking with every step, because they  _ know  _ now. It’s out. Or part of it is. And Diego has no one to blame for the fact but himself. 

He’s embarrassed for some reason, as though he’s made a spectacle of himself. Luther smiles at him as he passes, something reassuring, warm, something that screams of that teamwork he boasted so proudly of in their interview. 

Diego stares right through him. 

Pogo is not in the basement when he arrives, only Dad. He does not look at Diego when he enters, nor does he acknowledge his presence. 

Diego is accustomed to this, though part of him thinks that he would like for Dad to yell at him, if it meant any kind of attention at all. 

“I’m sorry, Sir.” He says, eyes straight ahead, hands firmly at his sides. Diego does not squirm or fidget. When he speaks, his voice remains monotonous, easier to control, easier to keep his words in check if he shoves down the feelings that accompany speaking in front of his father. 

“An apology will not resurrect that civilian, Number Two. Your failure has cost a man his life, a fault that falls solely on your shoulders.” 

Diego knows that. He’s not an idiot, despite what Five often claims. He is fully aware of the fact that the man he failed in saving today had a family. Children. A mother and siblings and maybe even a father who loved him. 

Diego has a mother who loves him and siblings who tolerate him. For as long as it took to get home, through throngs of traffic that had built up due to the crash, Diego wished that it had been him instead, who’d failed to breach the surface of the water with air still in his lungs. 

But it was him who made it, not the man, and only one of them had to live with it. 

“Your hair is not short enough. Grace will see to that in the morning.” His father says, jotting down notes, calipers out, measuring the distance between Diego’s eyes, the bridge of his nose, the tip and his cupid’s bow. 

“Has the ringing in your ears ceased?” 

Diego nods, even though it hasn’t stopped since his final plunge into the river. 

“Very well.” His father hands him the cap, the one with the wires that he knows won’t fit, but forces it to fit anyway. It pinches at his ears and the shortened hair on his scalp --  _ Dad was right,  _ Diego thinks with something near a whimper, _ I do need to go shorter. _

“In you go, Number Two. I do not have all night.”

Neither does Diego, but he climbs the steps regardless, the metal cold beneath his feet, worsening the chill that he hasn’t been able to rid from his bones all evening.

He can do this part himself now. No Dad, no Mom or Pogo. The metal lid is twisted open and the water smells stale at first, old and unchanged since his last visit, so long ago he can hardly recall it. When he sinks to the bottom, pulling the lid closed with him, it’s a gentle thing and requires coaxing, his palms on the glass, easing his way down. He cuffs his ankle, because he’s supposed to, because what is another inch of cut and raw skin after a day such as this?

The glass tank remains exposed, no cover in sight, artificial light spilling in. He does not go to the Void, desperately wills himself not to. He merely floats, for hours, the only sign of passing time being the rhythmic beep of the machines, the ones that tell Dad that he is still alive, and not just floating lifelessly in the bath. 

When Diego emerges, hours later, it is to little fanfare. His good behaviour to make up for his failings hardly earns him a nod. He allows it to pass him, so as to not crumble. Does not peer at his father’s stopwatch to see his time, no, simply trudges back towards the elevator, not needing to guide himself along the corridors through feel alone because sunlight glints between the window panes. Very late and very early all at once.

Diego does not look at himself when he reaches his room, he can’t. An ugly, battered thing, the picture of defeat, clothes sticking to him, unchanged since they left for the governor’s mansion this morning. 

He keels over as he changes into something softer, warmer, bones rattling in spasms that can’t shake the cold. Teeth clamping down on a tongue that works viciously in his closing throat. The cold bites Diego, and it is the worst wound of them all.

When he crawls into bed, frozen, the temperature improves only slightly. Mom’s hot water bottles have cooled in the night and he knows she is too busy charging to have replaced them. He shivers, tries to sleep, and can’t; visions plague him, of blue lips and puffed cheeks, blood on a winter coat that swallows a child whole. 

He jolts. There is someone in his room.

It’s not Ben or Klaus, or even Vanya, with the sad songs she plays and the soft whispers in the dark. It’s Allison. And drug store perfume and no socks on her feet so the sparkly paint on her toenails can remind her of the tiniest of invisible luxuries. 

She does not say much, which is a change from the norm, and Diego is glad for it, as he does not think he’d be fit to respond at the moment. Not when phlegm clogs the salted sting of his throat, when his teeth snap together in a rapid chatter that stings the sides of his tongue. When his lungs still burn and his ears ache sharply and the cuts on his body burn viciously from the salt water of the bath. 

He is impossibly cold, and then he is not. Because Allison drapes a blanket over him, her favourite one, a silky, pink, quilted thing with flowers embroidered in every square of patchwork. 

It warms him, but he shivers still, and when he doesn’t stop or even turn to face her, he feels the covers lift for a moment only for the mattress to dip a fraction as she gets in beside him. She lays her head on the other half of his pillow, hair pulled back in a braid by Mom, baby hairs framing her face in soft wisps.

Her bare feet poke at him, writhing at his own for even an ounce of additional warmth. But Diego runs cold, she knows this, so maybe it’s something else. 

“Qu- ” He bites, kicking sharply at her shins with his heel and curling further in on himself. A small amount of air escapes his chest as he finally speaks, though some remains caught up still, trapped. “Quit it.”

He turns to face the wall and Allison curls tighter, holding him in a vice around the concave of his stomach. She hums something soft and sweet, a tune from Mom, and when the fog of empty sleep begins to cloud his mind's eye she drops a soft kiss to the top of his bare head. 

“Sweet dreams, Diego.”

He exhales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you can see, i have take a million liberties with diego's powers in this fic, even though the whole point is that he also has eleven's powers, but i feel that things are starting to marry quite nicely. idk. 
> 
> this has reached over 3k views and i simply can't believe it? thank you??? also there were some really lovely comments on the last chapter that had me quite emotional, so thank you to everyone who's taken the time to tell me what they think. 
> 
> the next chapter is partially written and it's a riot so lmao prepare for that :))))


	10. five.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Where do you go at night?”
> 
> Five asked this like it was no weighty thing, like he was wondering if Diego wanted to play cards later. But there was something there, a kind of awareness that frightened Diego and, not for the first time, he wondered if maybe his brother knew everything and was simply being nice about waiting for Diego to come out and tell him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which i accidentally plagiarise myself.
> 
> some changes in the tags to note! depression tw for this chapter and tbh most that will follow. 
> 
> if you want to cry like i did while writing this, i recommend listening to the ["I See a Darkness"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg7GJghu4Zo) cover by ROSALÍA. really, it should be the title of this fic because it is so appropriate. instead, i am going to include some lyrics below.

_Many times we've been out drinking  
Many times we've shared our thoughts  
But did you ever, ever notice  
The kind of thoughts I got? _

* * *

For a long time, things feel fine, even though they are not. 

Or, at least, Diego can pretend. He’s good at that, it’s why Klaus still wants to play dolls with him, even though they’re too old now, according to Dad, who made them watch as he tossed their last set into the fireplace. 

Klaus cried, Diego did not. 

They’re too old for things like that, for paper dolls and crawling around on the floor, dirtying their uniforms and scuffing their knees for the sake of imagination, to keep up with the characters (friends) they have made up in their minds. But they’re old enough for other things now, Allison insists, and in rare agreement with her, Five. 

There are places they can go, Allison claims, that she has seen on the way home from missions. Places that light up with beautiful colours under the night sky, that promise 24 hours of service, so they can definitely go when lessons and training, both personal and group, are over. Diego has seen them too, but in the Void, where the lights shine like a beacon in the never ending blackness. 

Allison poses her suggestion to Dad, though Diego hasn’t a clue why, at breakfast one morning, plate entirely cleaned and ready for the day. 

“Father, may we go for a walk during leisure time this Saturday?” She says, all prim and proper, the best that any of them could have offered. Diego envies Allison for how well she can speak, but he also admires her for it. 

“Do you have a destination in mind, Number Three, or is this walk solely for the purpose of exercise?”

“Fresh air, for sure.” She says, a little two word token phrase he thinks Allison might have heard from a reporter. “Also, Luther thinks it would be very good for team building, right Luther?”

She cuts him a look across the table, clearly reaching as far as she can with her foot to kick him. Diego has no doubt that they have discussed this privately beforehand. He smothers a laugh in his shoulder, watching how his brother flounders in his attempt to appease their father and sister all at once. 

“Yes, right, exactly, Father. It would allow us to put into practice the simulations that Mom has arranged.” Ramrod straight, picture perfect. Diego thinks Luther is missing a few key points, but he wants to go out on Saturday too, so he doesn’t take the risk of undermining and pointing them out. “I firmly believe it would aid us in improving our communication.”

Diego snorts, because Allison really must have given Luther a talking to. Prior to this, when they had discussed it last night before bed, with Klaus all giddy and Vanya on the edge like she really thought they wouldn’t include her, Luther had been vehemently against the whole thing.

“There are too many variables.” He had said, standing instead of sitting like the rest of them.

“Like wh- w-- ”

“Yeah, Lu, like _what?_ ” Klaus interrupted Diego, hands on his hips, Allison’s feather boa knotted around his neck.

“Well, _you’ll_ go running off and _he,_ ” Luther pointed to Diego, “will likely go with you. Five won’t listen to me and Vanya’s not used to being out. I don’t think Ben and Allison will do anything, but that doesn’t mean a third party won’t intervene and trigger a situation.”

Klaus grabbed the end of the boa and whipped it through the air. Diego curved the tail of it before the feathers could catch him in the face, but it didn’t seem like anyone had noticed.

“How utterly _offensive._ I’m not going to sneak out with my siblings only to _ditch_ them the second we taste _freedom._ What do you take me for? A _flake?_ ”

“You slept through lessons yesterday.” Ben added flatly, entirely unhelpful, but likely his own brand of snark. 

Klaus gasped, boa flung over his shoulder once more. “ _Allegedly._ ”

Five had scoffed then from his position at Diego’s other side. Hands in his pockets, he walked to the center of the room to stand next to a comically taller Luther. 

“We all heard you snore, Klaus.” He began, before moving on to the more pressing point. “Regardless, I propose that we take our first few outings as a collective group. Eventually we will have to splinter off. I mean, it’s not subtle. Seven kids all wearing the same clothes, wandering the streets of a Saturday afternoon.”

“Maybe they’ll think we’re super fans.” Allison pondered idly, twisting a strand of hair around her pointer finger. 

“Maybe.” Five nodded. “But it’s unlikely that Dad is going to agree to let us go, even if Luther makes the vote unanimous. Sneaking out at night may be our best option.” He had paused then, considering them all carefully, though Diego had felt a lot like his brother was addressing him directly. “On nights when everyone is free, of course. No training or dream-probing.”

And Five was right: Luther’s change of heart from the night prior does little to sway their father. Who is sitting at the top of the table, regarding them all evenly, probably waiting to see who will crumble first. 

Diego would like to back up their argument; to show solidarity with Number One for the first time since childhood. He could string a convincing argument together in his mind, if only the words would cooperate on their way out of his mouth. But no, in trying, he would only mess the entire thing up. Like always. 

“I really do think it would help, Sir.” Allison beams, shooting Five a quick diagonal glare across the table as he moves to interrupt. “We’re willing to accept responsibility, and we wouldn’t let anyone know that we’re from the Umbrella Academy. We’ll have to learn how to blend into society at _some_ point.”

Allison’s so used to getting her own way with the father -- because he fears her, sometimes, bends to her will by choice because he is aware that she can take it away in the blink of an eye -- that she doesn’t notice her biggest mistake. 

The future is not something they talk of in the Academy. Not beyond the notions of saving the world from its inevitable end at some vague and distant point in years to come. They are not meant to blend, to seep into the world and appear normal. Ordinary. They are _extraordinary,_ all of them, even Vanya in some ways. They bear the name _Hargreeves,_ their births have widely been dubbed _The Phenomenon._ They cannot simply settle into mundane lives, with babies and pets and cars like Diego has seen in the Void. Father has made that abundantly clear, and it is a foolish slip on Allison’s part. 

“I thought you had grown out of manipulating your siblings to your childish whims, Number Three.” Their father says, barely sparing Allison a glance as he returns to his meal. “Evidently not.”

They wait then, in foolish anticipation of a positive answer. Diego knows better than to hope, but he can see how the others do: the blatant nature of their desires painted so obviously on their faces. He looks away as their father delivers his final verdict, not willing to subject himself to the disappointment that blankets his siblings’ expressions. 

“I forbid you from leaving the Umbrella Academy unless directly ordered to do so. Your leisure period on Saturday will consist of personal reading and any other constructive avocations approved by Master Pogo. No _dolls_ and _certainly_ no afternoon strolls. You are all dismissed.”

-:-

So it is that they sneak out. At least once a week, for the following few months, the Hargreeves siblings defy direct orders from their father and creep in the dead of night to an old donut shop, and a bowling alley, on occasion, when Klaus suggests they visit one because he would like to wear shoes that have colour and aren’t just boring, old Oxfords. 

Diego is great at bowling, predictably, to the point that it draws attention from late night frequenters of the place. He never lets it fall into the gutter, and even curves Ben’s ball when he’s having a particularly bad round. Vanya’s too -- when she’s falling into the forgettable middle ground of the scoreboard; not like Klaus, who proudly holds last place, or Five, who keeps jumping to the top of the lane and kicking the pins over so he can claim a spare. 

“No powers.” Luther says to Diego, bypassing Five entirely, clearly disgruntled at inhabiting the bottom of the scoreboard for such a length of time. “You’re cheating.”

“‘S not cheating.” Diego responds, wiping his running nose on the inside of his sleeve, despite Mom constantly reminding him not to. “Not like I c-ca-can help it.”

“Yes you can! I’ve seen you miss during training like a _million_ times, definitely on purpose.”

“Do-don’t know wh-wha’ you’re talking about, Luther.” He shrugs, kicking his foot up onto the table between them to tighten his laces. The shoes don’t fit right and his toes feel pinched, but Diego isn’t willing to admit discomfort in the face of Luther’s building tantrum, not when he has the upper hand for once. 

“Not m-mmy pr-pro-- fault you keep throw-throwing the ball into the wr-r-r-- other lanes.” Diego leans back on his hands like it’s all cool, like Luther isn’t standing and ready to swing at him for the simple act of winning for once in his life. He likes the feeling of it, of being the best for once, even at something as inconsequential as bowling. “Besides, Five keeps ju-jum-jumping. If I’m ch-cheatin’ then he is too.”

“No, _you_ are Two.” Klaus chokes on his popcorn, arms cast wide like he’s waiting for a round of applause. “That was a good one, right Vanny?” 

“Yeah, Klaus, it was.” Their sister is only humouring him, and each of them knows this. Allison giggles behind her hand, because _she_ can recall the manners Mom taught them. 

“Actually, I’m w-wo-One. That’s wh-what the sco-re-scoreboard says, right, Be-B?”

“That’s because you _cheated._ ” Luther near yells, and Ben rolls his eyes from where he’s taking note. 

“Don’t drag me into your petty arguments. I want no part in it.” He jots something down and Luther peers over his shoulder like he’s Pogo checking on their work. “With that round, Diego is winning. By a mile.” 

Diego beams, something bright and effervescent, that works its way down to the tips of his squashed toes. He’s never felt like this before, a rush to his system, a flood of something pleasant to the workings of his brain. A kind of invincibility, maybe, that is poorly placed in something so trivial as bowling, but feels like more than enough for now. 

Even though Luther is sulking, kicking up a fuss that they all know would not happen were anyone but Diego (or maybe Vanya) in the lead; even though Diego hates how the people around them, not many but certainly a few, look at them, at _him,_ and his otherness (the scars on his arms and legs and how they stand out stark white and deep purple against the darkness of his skin, his _hair,_ or lack thereof), there is still something that cracks and leaks into the cavities of his chest and warms the cold that festers there, if only for a few brief moments. 

It’s easy to get stuck here, in the All-Star, in Griddy’s Donuts with his Boston Cream and Vanya’s strawberry jam and Klaus’ sprinkles that wind up in his hair and, inexplicably, everyone’s pockets. Diego thinks that they might be in their element, out on the streets together. He thinks about how Five hasn’t taken out a pencil or a book, how he hasn’t snapped at any of them even once. How Ben looks kind of relaxed, despite being out in the open like this, when, privately, he had confessed to Diego about how _nervous_ he was. How Vanya is _smiling_ (smiling!) and helping Allison pick some lip gloss out from a 24 hour drugstore that they stumble into on the way home. 

And there is a silly part of Diego that forgets about all the bad things, like how he trains double time now, in every aspect. How his nose is always bleeding and his ever shortening hair is always wet and his fingers and hands are covered in tiny slices from his very own knives. He sees things that he can’t write about in his journal, can’t force himself to think about ever again for how horrible they are; for how sad and awful people can be. 

So when moments like these, with his siblings and sugar and games and some nice people who don’t treat them like celebrities or superheroes, are set into motion by Allison or Five, or more and more often Klaus nowadays, Diego jumps at the chance to join. 

Because when Diego is happy, like this, like right now, he thinks it’s going to last forever. 

And every single time, he is wrong. 

-:-

Five is gone and Diego burns in white hot anger without a single ounce of reprieve.

Five leaves just as winter turns to spring. Diego does not see it happen, because he is sick in bed at the time. He is always sick now, colds and ear infections, fluctuating temperatures and spontaneous nosebleeds, but missing Five’s sweet escape pains him so much more than all of that. 

He hopes his brother has gone somewhere nice.

It was only the week before -- after their tattoos, after Diego had locked himself in the bathroom to throw up the shock of a perpetual needle pressed to the inside of his wrist and Vanya had asked Five to jump in and make sure that he was okay -- that Five had let Diego crawl into his bed for, unknowingly, the last time ever. 

The darkness pinched at every corner of their sleeping quarters as Diego’s bare feet hurried across the tile. He could feel the others as he passed their rooms, how still they slept, how KIaus writhed in his bed, tangling the strings of his movements as well as his sheets, but made no sounds of malcontent that would indicate a nightmare. Five’s status was unknown, his bedroom being that little bit further down the hallway, quieter, removed from the others.

This wasn’t his first choice, no, but he had rejected Mom’s earlier comfort so brutally that he did not wish to confuse her by seeking it out again, and he had seen Five, how his face had pinched in fear at the sight of Diego being tattooed, and he knew his brother would understand. 

Light cast a yellow fan beneath Five’s door, so Diego had felt little guilt in knocking. And whatever guilt he might have felt dissipated entirely at the sight of his brother, clad in too big blue pajamas, glaring at him from the door frame. 

“Are you still feeling bad?”

He hadn’t thought to gather himself prior to visiting Five, because when they were kids, righting the buttons on his pajamas and wiping the tear tracks from his cheeks had never occurred to him. Five rarely commented on such things, anyway, and Diego knew quite well that his words -- or lack thereof -- would speak volumes of his emotional state. 

“I-I-- You w-- ”

Five spared him having to flounder through the explanation, though him interrupting Diego was out of character. An act of mercy, perhaps. 

“Would you like to come in? I’m doing research. Some company would be nice.”

That was rich, because Five hated it when they lurked. Ben and Vanya were the only regular exceptions, sitting quietly with their studies or personal reading while Five scribbled furiously on any scrap of paper he could manage to hold onto. When Allison and Luther were off doing whatever it was that they did, Diego would find Klaus, or Klaus would find him and they’d intrude upon these moments between their three most studious siblings. 

Fingers curled around the doorframe, they’d beam devilishly, doing their damnedest to capture Ben’s attention and lure him away from the bore of reading for some form of adventure. Sometimes, he’d shoo them away, or Five would; never Vanya. Other times, Five’s eyes would roll to the point of appearing painful and he’d nudge the other two, dragging them with him behind Diego and Klaus to get in on whatever scheme they had planned. 

“W-wha-t are you rees-re-researching?” Diego found his voice, toes curling into Five’s carpet with each step he took. He sat next to Five on the bed, surrounded by books and haphazardly placed pieces of paper. His brother paid no mind to the mess, and instead sat with his legs criss-crossed and more notes in his lap. 

“Time travel.”

“Can you d-do that? I thought D-Da-- he said no…”

“Well.” Five spared Diego a glance before returning to his work. “Up until a few months ago, none of us had any idea you could hold your breath indefinitely. Who’s to say that jumping through time is entirely beyond the parameters of my abilities? It’s the same as my spatial jumps, just with a different end goal in mind. Your powers don’t even have anything in common.”

He could have told Five then, that there was a link, however tenuous, between each of his powers. He could have spoken of the Void and how easily it was finding him these days, how he choked on the blackness and the blood that clogged his nostrils, on the water that rattled around in his chest like a phantom of his dive down into the river.

He wanted to, so desperately. 

“Yeah they do!” Diego chanced, regardless, leaning forwards on the mattress before the sharp sting of his left wrist reminded him of why he had come to Five in the first place. He pulled his sleeve down over his inked wrist, unwilling to confront how it made him feel just yet.

“Enlighten me.” Five said, folding away his notebook for a moment, fixing Diego with one of those awfully smug smirks he so often used on the rest of them. “I can jump through space and likely time. What relation exists between trajectory manipulation and not needing to breathe?”

Diego got ahead of himself then, left wrist folded to his side -- Five, the ambidextrous asshole who preferred his left hand, was favouring his right too -- as he rearranged the words he wanted to say in his mind at thought of the best and most senseful way to explain it all to his brother. 

It had been exciting, almost, to indulge in this. To skirt the edge of danger and risk spilling it all when Dad had, over and over, explicitly told him not to. Five saw this, in Diego’s body language, probably, and mirrored it with his own. He leaned forwards, papers crunching beneath his bony knees, as Diego did his best to wrangle a sentence together.

“There are these- these str-strings. I follow them. Everywh-- where. In the ba-- ”

Maybe it sounded like an unfortunate victim of his stutter, how the sentence finished so abruptly. But the truth of it was that Diego willed it to happen, or some part of him did. Because there were things he could not speak of, and while everyone must have figured that training had been done with his newly revealed special ability, no one directly asked him, nor did he bring it up himself. 

Dad never liked for them to discuss such things. Diego only knew of Klaus’ special training because it had been whispered to him beneath the darkness of one of the staircases when they had been playing hide and seek with the others. 

But Five obviously did not recognise the end of the sentence for what it was and pushed further. 

“In the what?” He asked, dark brows scrunched, strands of combed hair falling across his forehead. 

“I c-c-can’t…”

Diego could not say, though he thought it was such a simple thing only moments prior. To reveal such a thing to Five would shatter everything, would dismantle the routine that he had been content to suffer in and flip the entire thing on its head; because Five could never leave anything alone. 

Maybe that was why he left them. 

“Where do you go at night?”

Five asked this like it was no weighty thing, like he was wondering if Diego wanted to play cards later. But there was something there, a kind of awareness that frightened Diego and, not for the first time, he wondered if maybe his brother knew everything and was simply being nice about waiting for Diego to come out and tell him. 

“I’ll tell you. Some d-day.” He told Five, curling in on himself. Through the window, the sky had gotten lighter, the sun beginning its ascent in the sky. 

Five regarded him rather seriously as he tidied the notes away and placed them reverently on his nightstand. He pulled the quilt back and then the sheet beneath, clearly untouched since Mom had made their beds that morning. Leaving room for him on the right hand side like always, he shuffled beneath the covers only for Diego to follow, careful of his wrist and careful of Five’s as he moved to lay on his side to face his brother. 

“Pinky promise?” Five had said it like it meant the world, hand coming up between them with his smallest finger extended. He would laugh at the rest of them -- at Allison or Klaus or Luther -- for doing such a thing, but not Diego; never Diego. 

Extracting his arm from beneath the covers sent a rush of cold air flooding down Diego’s pajama sleeves, but he smiled despite the chill of it, finger hooked around his brother’s, their new tattoos a mirror of each other, parallel lines, rare to touch but so often side by side.

“The pinkiest.”

Now, Diego burrows further into his covers and holds tight to the sharpness of the memory. The notes around them sounding loud in the nighttime quiet like the crunch of autumn leaves; Five’s warm fingers wrapping a circle around his wrist while they slept. He can still feel it, if he squeezes his eyes shut and tries hard enough. But nothing is good enough to anchor him, not yet. Nothing exists right now that will take him to Five, help him find his brother, wherever it is that he went.

He coughs into his quilt, bones aching from the cold, chest burning fiercely, and thinks of better places. Warmer ones, where Five might have found a beach they can play at, or a home in the woods, with animals and trees like the one in Ben's drawing, and a lake that stretches out as far as the mountains that surround them. 

He smiles despite the pain of it all, the lack of a goodbye, the loss of a limb in the form of a brother, and closes his eyes, busying his restless mind with wild notions of where he might be. 

Five could never leave anything alone, so he _will_ come back for them. He has to.

-:-

“Diego?”

His skin is tacky, clothes damp from his time in the bath last night, and when Diego lifts his head to see which of the girls it is that decided to wake him -- to yell at them, or maybe even _cry_ at this point -- the weight of his blocked sinuses and throbbing ears drags him back towards his pillow. 

“You need to get up.” Hesitant, the sheets haven’t been ripped from him yet, nor has he been rumoured from his bed, so it must be Vanya. “Dad says there’s a briefing.”

“Mi-Mish-Mission?” He gets that much out, uncaring. Because the alarm hasn’t rung since Five left and Diego isn’t entirely certain he is in fit enough shape to do more than lay uselessly on a training mat. 

He’s been bed bound on Mom’s orders for a few days now, which makes little sense because Dad still drags him up at night, has him training in the pool and the bath ‘til all hours. It makes Diego feel alone, like the others are living out the nightmare of their missing brother together, and he has no one but his own thoughts to keep him company. Because he can’t get into the Void, not right now, just like he can’t get out of bed. 

Mom says it’s in his head, quick to let him know she’s not dismissing how he feels in the slightest, but simply trying to find the source of it. He doesn’t quite grasp what it is that she’s saying, but it’s not like he’s truly trying to. Because he is tired all the time now and everything aches. Five is gone and Diego doesn’t see the point of getting out of bed during the day. Not unless people are dying in the streets and there’s something he can do about it. 

“Not a mission, there was no alarm.” Vanya says and Diego wants to say _duh,_ but can’t muster the energy to tease his sister. “And, well, I’m supposed to be there too. So, I figure maybe it’s about Five.”

Diego looks at her then, how her fingers pinch at her worried sleeves, bangs falling over her eyes and hiding the truth of them. The tears in them, maybe, because Vanya’s taken Five leaving rather personally.

“Dad said he’d start without you; he’s being very mean about the whole thing. But… well, I know you miss him like I do, Diego. And I know Mom said we weren’t supposed to disturb you, but I really think you should come.”

He wonders why Mom said that, if maybe it was another orchestration of Dad’s, or if Mom really thinks there is something wrong with him. To think about it doesn’t feel very nice on top of everything else. 

“W-W-Will you…?” He tries to sit up, the weight on his chest like that of a cinder block, and gestures towards the doors of his wardrobe. 

“Oh!” It takes Vanya a second, but she gets there, moving to open the doors and brush through the racks briefly to grab some pants and a shirt. They are sometimes spared the cruelty of shorts in such weather.

“Here.” She places them on the bed before Diego as he attempts to extract himself from Mom’s earlier attempt at a swaddle. “Do you need some help?”

If it were anyone but Vanya, and perhaps Ben, Diego would be utterly mortified at his inability to function. But he does not worry that she will laugh at him or think him weak, and really, he doesn’t have the energy to spend on such things, not when he’s elected to ignore her question and begin his pathetic attempt at pulling his pants up over his legs. 

Yes, everything hurts, but everything has hurt before, and Diego had been perfectly capable of getting back up to continue fighting. This time is not so easy, and the frustration that plagues him due to the lack of a real reason for all of this blinds him in his task of finding the sleeve in his shirt. 

He groans, something guttural and beyond his control as he tries and fails once more to dress himself fully. But quietly, without much fuss, Vanya takes his wrist in her hand ( _Vanya,_ not Five) and guides it towards the hole in his sleeves. She helps him shrug the garment up over his hunched shoulders and fastens the buttons from his collar all the way down to his bellybutton. 

Laces then tied on his feet, she does not do anything but offer him a hand to stand after that, content to trail him up the stairs and stand by his side in a blatant disordering of the numbers as their father berates them, warns them off a fate such as that of their missing brother. 

Spittle flies from their father’s mouth, cane wrapping against the floor of the foyer, merciless to the throb of Diego’s skull, uncaring of how Klaus cries so openly, of how Allison clings to him like she did a week ago, when tattoos burned their skin like a brand.

Vanya does not have one, nor will she ever. Diego reaches down and squeezes her left wrist anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is a second part to this chapter that is mostly written, it just felt strange to confine to one episode when the loss of five impacts them for their entire lives. and messes them up. irreparably. 
> 
> thank you for reading!


	11. cough syrup.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diego would very much like to scream. It bubbles there, in his chest, with all the bad feelings that have clogged up over the last few months. The longing and the absence, the regret and perpetual fear. He locks the feeling down, allows the rage to heat him with a fire more fierce than his ever rising temperature. He keeps it there, where the bad things go, and knows that when he is well enough for the Void to allow his return, that is where he will release it.
> 
> “Yes, Sir.” He says, blank and unmoving. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a half-formed plot arc is introduced in this chapter, with a dash of stranger things references. a very tiny dash. let me know if you spot it!
> 
> triggers are in the end notes.
> 
> (also, i tried to post this for the hargreeves' birthday, but my eyes simply refused to stay open. so happy belated birthday, ig)

There is a string that Diego follows to get to Five, he picks away at it each night like a scab he'll never allow to heal.

Fingers and toes, numbed entirely by the icy depths of the water he spends hours in, pry apart sheets that are not his own, that belong to no one now. 

He sleeps beneath a sky of equations, surrounded by books and academic journals, order chronological and not alphabetical. Skin damp, droplets of water clinging to the barest amount of hair that sprouts from his scalp, Diego burrows further, as if he will find some part of his brother here, trigger a memory, a lurch that will take him into the Void, into the place where Five may now be. 

He hears Vanya on the stairs, follows her string down each step with his mind and towards the kitchen, where she agonises over a sandwich that their brother will never eat. He is not here, he is not anywhere that Diego can see. 

He feels Allison in the attic, rumouring the universe into giving Five back. Luther in the gym, carrying on as if nothing has changed. Ben is in his room like always and Klaus is somewhere else like always. Diego doesn’t like to look at either of them.

Not that the Void would let him. It’s not cooperating as of late. 

His eyes sting all the time now, with the effort of keeping them open, with the remnants of treated water from the night before. The bath has been forgotten lately, though it is still the most effective form of communicating with the Void, according to Dad. But the Void is not the only place Dad is looking, no. His new focus is on Diego’s physical resilience to the water; entirely unconcerned with the effects it has on his mind. 

There is a pool that Diego swims in, that they’ve always had for lessons and training. They used to play in it, he and his siblings, when Dad wasn’t looking. Now, he swims to the very bottom and stays there, he pushes through fabricated currents that drag him across grimy tile and he skids as he seeks purchase. He makes an entire home under water, in the hours, the days that he spends there. 

_It’s still better than the bath,_ he reminds himself, over and over. He lies to himself, over and over.

The rattle in his chest has not left him since the river and the ringing in his ears is neverending, but he is stronger now, surely. He can swim for hours, he can lift weights heavier than Luther from the very bottom of the pool up to the surface. He can swim fast in any direction he might like, with how the water moves around him, how he can move himself in it. 

And Diego is better for it, truly. He is more capable of living up to his responsibilities. He can save lives and not be the end of them. It doesn’t matter how ill he feels, how heavy his head feels upon his shoulders, how he aches for warmth and crawls towards it at any given chance. 

He is not a baby, he is _fourteen._ Five is no longer here, so Diego must learn to survive these nights on his own. 

When he tries reaching for his brother, squeezing his eyes shut tight and hoping that he will find Five somewhere in the darkness, Diego fails, inevitably, every time. Dad is distracted by other things, so this is of little matter at the moment. But Diego bristles with frustration for himself and tries again and again, wrapped tight beneath Five’s sheets.

He can’t do it. It’s too hard and Five has gone too far, wherever he is. But when Diego reaches out again in yet another futile attempt, there is another string for him to follow, one that is much closer than before. 

Klaus wanders the hallways like a haunted thing. Like the ghosts he so often boasts of seeing. He has strayed too far from his own room, from the section of corridor he shares with Diego and Vanya, and Diego can feel the wobble in his gait without needing to look; he can see the wrongness of Klaus without needing to fall into the Void to do so. 

Diego doesn’t hesitate in making for Five’s door and opening it slightly to peer out into the dark hall. It’s hard to see Klaus, but he’s there, leaning like a sad lump with the protruding notches of his spine digging against the damp walls. 

He’s hunched over with his head in one hand and a bottle in the other. Diego thinks it might be one of Dad’s, he can smell it from here. They’re not meant to touch anything in the drawing room that isn’t a book, but clearly Klaus didn’t listen; he rarely does. 

Diego knows what his brother is going to do before it happens. He watches as Klaus lifts the bottle to his mouth, ready to take another long gulp, and he curves the movement before his brother can manage to complete it. 

The result is a spill of alcohol all over Klaus’ shirt, but much worse things have stained their clothes and Diego can’t quite find it in himself to care, even when Klaus finally notices him in the half-light of the corridor and shoots him a disgusted look. 

“Not fair.” Klaus groans, considering the bottle that is held loosely between his fingers before letting his arm drop to his side. “Was that you?”

“Dunno.” Diego responds, moving slowly along the wall, fingers grazing the peeling posters stuck there. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Wasn’t allowed to.” Klaus says this with a bizarre kind of bitterness, strange in only that he laughs where Diego would likely cry. “Daddy dearest decided I need another trip to the ghost house. It’s all fun and games for Number Four.”

“The mau-m-ma-- ”

“Mausoleum?” Klaus cuts across him, taking another swig of the bottle while Diego is distracted. “ _Yup._ ”

“For Five?”

“Hell if I know.” Klaus is slurring a little as he speaks, it sounds wrong on his brother. “What? Does Dad seriously think that Five is going to come and haunt my ass instead of going into the Light? Our brother could hardly stand me when he was _alive._ I highly doubt he’s allotting me time in his afterlife.”

“You think he’s d-de-dead?”

“You don’t? If Five were alive, he’d have come back for us by now. Or not. What do I know?” Klaus laughs again and nothing about this is all that funny. Diego wants to be mad at him, but hurt shows itself differently on all of them. 

“I think that… that may-maybe he’s stuck.”

Klaus looks at him then, black ringing his bright eyes. There is something pink on his cheek. It looks sticky. 

“Stuck where? You think… did the little bastard really do it?”

_Yes,_ Diego would like to say. 

_He’s trapped and I can’t reach him._

_He’s lost, somewhere awful, and he wants to come home._

But all he does is shrug. And maybe, like him, Klaus doesn’t want to talk about it any more. It reminds Diego of his failings in finding Five, though Klaus couldn’t possibly know that; he likely wants to give the mausoleum as little attention as possible. Because he doesn’t press, simply takes another gulp before offering the bottle to Diego, half full, brown liquid sloshing around inside. 

“No thanks.” Diego says. Things like that dull his powers. Well, sedatives do, and pain medication; they all make him woozy, make the strings twist and tangle. They make Diego miss things --- targets, places, people. He can’t rely on it like Klaus has started to, can’t let it damage his potential, not if he wants to be Number One. 

Not if he wants to find Five.

“Your loss, _mon frère._ ” Klaus’ arm swings back around to his chest, capping the bottle like he’s saving it for later. This isn’t a wise move -- Dad will obviously search their rooms when he notices it’s missing. 

“Got some cough syrup in my room if you like? It tastes _way_ better. Not gonna lie -- I stole it from the infirmary _purely_ because I think the colour flatters my complexion, but everything after that was a total bonus!”

“I’m o-okay, thanks. I w-wann-- want to get some r-r-rest before training tom-morrow.” To sleep, in Five’s room. To give the Void another shot and allow himself a selfish comfort before finally resting. 

“You top three are so damn _motivated,_ you know that?” Klaus says and Diego finally allows himself a quiet laugh. “Nighty night, Twoots!”

Diego watches as Klaus skips down the hall, bottle swinging to hide the shake of his shoulders, and turns into his room. He waits until his brother is entirely out of sight and the door is closed before entering Five’s room once more. 

“Night, Cloud.”

  
  


-:-

“Aspiration pneumonia, Sir.” The cold metal of the stethoscope stings Diego’s chest, has him jolting into another bout of shivers despite the fact that Pogo had just proclaimed his temperature to be an abnormally high ninety-seven degrees. 

“No signs of barotrauma, then?” His father asks, brisk and flippant, like such a thing would be more of an inconvenience than a traumatic injury to his son. 

Pogo seems to ponder this for a moment, noting something on a clipboard, turning through prior pages. Diego wishes Mom were here, but she’s not. Dad likes dinner at the same time every night and there is rarely a worthy exception. 

“There is clear damage to the ear drums from his dive from the bridge, though I do not think that it is permanent.” Pogo shines a small light into Diego’s ear as if to double-check. “His hearing seems to be mostly intact, and I am not overly-concerned about his bouts of dizziness, it is likely that they are due to his rise in temperature.”

Dad nods, though is obviously unhappy with this answer. The strings can easily get tangled when Diego cannot gather his bearings; it’s happened more than once that he has thrown a knife at a target and missed.

Pogo considers something for a moment, leafing through the pages once more before, embarrassingly, pushing the front of Diego’s nose and peering up his nostrils. 

“Master Diego’s nosebleeds have lessened quite dramatically since lack of entry to the, uh Void, Sir. I would attribute any sudden spills to his current condition, if his training continues to remain focused on stamina, that is.”

He wishes Pogo wouldn’t mention the Void, for fear of Dad questioning why it is that he can’t currently go there. It hasn’t been easy, between all of the diving, up and down and down and up, collecting rings and things, throwing them, attempting to manipulate the trajectory of whatever he can, despite the bizarre movement of the water. 

It’s not the same, but that aspect of it isn’t necessarily harder than when he trains above ground. It’s only different, and more difficult purely for how sick he feels all the time. The dregs of himself wash up onto the edge of the Umbrella Academy swimming pool as the sun begins to rise each morning, and Diego feels as though the very life has been ripped from him.

The bath is only a sometimes thing, reserved for when Dad wants to examine his lung capacity, how his organs operate with prolonged exposure to altered water, reaped of its oxygen, lest Diego absorb it through his skin.

“It is of no matter, then.” Dad cuts his train of thought short and looks Diego up and down with evident disdain. There is nowhere to hide here, and though Diego spends his time in the bath now shirtless, the feeling of such raw exposure -- of his gooseflesh and heaving chest, spine curled for the aches that wrack it -- in front of his own father releases a fresh bout of shame that shatters something inside of him. 

“This is but a cold, Number Two. Pay no mind to Grace’s theories, her software requires upgrading.” That doesn’t sound right. Mom rarely requires such alterations, as she carries out most updates herself. But Diego does not understand her theories about his mind and his exhaustion, so he can’t begin to fathom why Dad might have an issue with them. 

“You will report to training in the bath by ten o’clock sharp. I had not realised that it had been so long since you entered the Void and, quite frankly, it is unacceptable. Losing your connection with it would render you entirely useless.” 

_Connection_ feels like the wrong word, like a simplification of the way in which the Void operates. Diego tries to focus on the flaws in his father’s statement rather than dwell on the feeling of being so readily disposable. He hurts too much already to think about such a thing and how badly it burns.

“Yes, Sir.” He holds himself still long enough to get that out, but when Diego tries to say more he cuts himself off and can’t get a handle on the question he wishes to pose. 

“M-May I-- can I…”

“Out with it, boy!” His father huffs, frustrated. “I have plenty to attend to between now at ten o’clock.”

Diego wouldn’t dare to ask under normal circumstances. He knows that this will cause him to appear weak in front of his father -- Luther’s never really been sick, not like the rest of them; his resilience appears to have extended to his immune system -- but he doesn’t have much choice at present. Even the simplest of tasks have become near impossible. He doesn’t need to know what’s wrong with him -- he doesn’t care to know about Mom’s theories that Dad has chosen to reject -- he just needs the sick feeling to stop now.

“Can I have some medi-me-medicine? To be bet-better for training?”

There is a brief and consuming moment in which Diego feels the shame of what he’s asked crawl up his throat and threaten to spill all over his father’s polished shoes. Something isn’t right and everyone can see it -- Luther wouldn’t even put up a good fight in training yesterday and actually _let_ Diego win! Dad has been passing it off as dramatics, like he does with Diego’s stutter and his inability to read at the same pace as his siblings. He talks like Diego chooses these things, as if he wants to feel like his ribs might crack under the pressure of his inflamed lungs at any given moment. 

And it would be fine, were this a regular cold that might run its course, but there are times at night where Diego hears the lapping of water in his dreams and wonders if he took a part of the river with him when he dived down to save that family. If maybe the bath and the pool and all the training has just been adding to this wrong thing inside of him and allowing it to swell and overwhelm him entirely before he simply cannot carry on. 

Maybe the Void can sense it, how weak he’s become. Maybe it won’t let him in until he gets stronger. And accessing the Void is the only way he can find Five. Dad knows this, but Diego’s not entirely certain that his father _wants_ to find Five, not when he’s playing games with Klaus and acting like he actually might find their brother in the mausoleum. Not when he’s been forcing Diego to the bottom of a diving pool instead of allowing him the dry and safe and _healthier_ option of the space beneath his study's floorboards. Even in the bath, there is poking and prodding but no _peace_ and quiet and blank space to get where he needs to go in his mind. 

But Dad acted surprised by that. Like he hasn’t been running interference between Diego and the Void this whole time; like he hasn’t been torturing Klaus when he knows his pathetic and sickly Number Two could find his precious Number Five if he just gave him the medicine to make him strong enough to manage it. 

“Perhaps Pogo’s diagnosis was incorrect.” His father finally says, with a little laugh to split his sentences in two. “Did you not hear me when I said that this is simply a _cold,_ Number Two, or is it that you refuse to _listen?_ ”

“I listen, Sir. I alw-w-ways do.” 

Frustrated with himself, Diego’s fingers bunch up the ream of paper that Pogo put in place over the examination table. 

“Do not lie to me, Number Two. You are off in that world of your own at the best of times, writing entirely redundant information in your journal; and when you are called upon to step up and provide information or skills that could save lives, you fall short by a mile.”

Diego withers, spine curving and fingers curling. Hair short, no shirt, and no Mom, he has nothing to hide behind and feels entirely exposed like a raw nerve under the press of his father’s thumb. 

“These complaints are senseless.” Dad continues, and Diego knows then that he shouldn’t have asked. 

“You do not need to breathe, child. Therefore, any alleged ailment in relation to your sinuses or your respiratory system as a whole is moot. You do not require medicine, it would not work. What you require is dedication such as that of Numbers One and Three." A slap to his back and Diego struggles in biting back a cough. 

"Number Five’s disappearance does not mean that you can now slack and lay about as though the world is going to save itself. You have responsibilities, boy!”

And Diego would very much like to scream. It bubbles there, in his chest, with all the bad feelings that have clogged up over the last few months. The longing and the absence, the regret and perpetual fear. He locks the feeling down, allows the rage to heat him with a fire more fierce than his ever rising temperature. He keeps it there, where the bad things go, and knows that when he is well enough for the Void to allow his return, that is where he will release it.

“Yes, Sir.” He says, blank and unmoving. 

“Put some clothes on, Number Two.” His father sighs, notebook pocketed and monocle pinching within the squint of his eye. “I am rather sick of looking at you.” 

-:-

_Again._

Dad says as Diego tears himself from the bath, a heave of water spilling out and onto the metal grate surrounding him. 

_Again._

Dad says as Diego sobs into his towel, more blood and water than cotton at this point.

_Again._

Dad says as Diego’s lungs burn with the dust that clouds the Void, swirls violently and blinds him from anything that might help him find his brother. As he hacks up a lung and some blood too, not from his nose this time, but somewhere deep in his chest. 

_Again._

Dad says, and Diego is empty. 

-:-

  
  


"Aw, c'mon, Cloud. Sharing is c-c-caring, right?"

"Dad'll never make you his precious Number One if you do this, Twoots. You sure you want to follow me down the yellow brick road?"

What a dumb comparison; not one Diego likes. He knows Klaus fancies himself Dorothy for how he still gravitates towards Mom's shoes despite his accident on the stairs last year. So who does that make him? The Tin Man? The idiot Scarecrow? Or, God forbid, the _Lion?_

"It's just some c-cough med-medi-mm-- _syrup,_ Klaus. I've got a cough any-anyway. D-Dad's just being a di-dick about it." 

"Vanny said you were a different kind of sick…"

"Wha-- Vanya d-doesn't know _shit."_

"She said Mom told her. Mom can’t lie about that kind of thing, you know.”

“M-Mom is wr-r-r-wrong. Dad said so.” Dad also said it was a _mere_ cold, but Diego elects to leave this part out. Because Mom said plenty besides it being a _different kind of sick._ She had said words like Pogo’s -- all _pneumonia_ and _phlegm_ and _bronchoscopy._ She obviously didn’t divulge these details to Vanya; Mom is good like that about private matters. 

“Cough, then. Really sell it to me, here.” Klaus waves his hands around like he’s ready to receive, prepared for anything. Diego’s not going to cough in his face. _Gross._

But he does cough into his elbow, like Mom taught them. A quiet thing that pinches at the back of his throat in an uncomfortable tickle. Klaus pouts, shakes his head and appears entirely unconvinced. And Diego is about to retort with something vulgar that will likely have him owing change to the swear jar before he is taken by surprise as a cough rips from somewhere low in his chest and scratches its way up his throat, even burning the back of his tongue on its exit. 

He heaves into his elbow as his knees tremble, the cough reverberating through his body and rattling his bones in its wake. It hurts so much that Diego could cry, and he knows Klaus wouldn’t make a big deal out of that or anything, but he imagines that crying would hurt even more, and he cannot spare any more energy towards pain that he does not understand. 

“Yikes.” Klaus rubs a slow circle on Diego’s back, slipping a brown glass bottle from the depths of his shorts. “I’m sold, Twoots.”

-:-

The Void does not care that he is weak; it has let him back in. Or perhaps, it has found its will facilitated by Diego’s current inability to focus on anything other than the glimpse of what he saw on his short visit there. 

Through training, he is entirely elsewhere, the loss of his typical hyper-focus evident to his siblings for how they look at him across the room. Except his throws are no different, though he knows that father feared they would be, and fighting anyone but Luther is of little to no challenge; it’s muscle memory at this point. 

It distracts him, though only sometimes. Blackness in the corner of his vision, a shadow in his periphery that vanishes in a plume of ash. There are lights that flicker and smoke without fire; smells of burning and sulfur invade his senses on the most pleasant and uneventful of days. His skin feels prickly sometimes, hot to the touch, and Mom will say that it’s his fluctuating fever, that she’s monitoring it every few hours, but Diego knows the heat of sickness and while he feels it near constantly, this other feeling is something else entirely. 

Even Ben feels it as they spar with one another, though not in the way that any of them would have anticipated. 

Their training has escalated now to something more severe. There is a violence that is allowed towards one another that ought to be concerning, but was introduced so gradually and felt like such an opportunity to showcase their powers that none of them truly noticed. 

The Horror isn’t always allowed out, but Diego has decided to forgo his knives for this session, which means that anything that happens should be considered friendly fire. Dad says it will teach Ben to control, to separate what is a threat from what is not. Nobody agrees with him, primarily for how obviously it upsets Ben to train like this, but none of them dare to dispute the matter. 

Diego dodges as a tentacle swipes his way, a heavy thing that curls across the floor and makes for his ankle with lightning speed. He leaps beyond its reach, dodging another as his feet make harsh impact with the floor. This jars something inside of him and the ache in his chest amplifies, but he perseveres regardless. 

He and Klaus had each swallowed a mouthful of cough syrup in the bathroom that morning, and Diego doesn’t feel that it has done much other than ease the tickle in his throat a fraction, but Klaus has been acting funny ever since. He tells himself that it is working, though, that he doesn’t feel a thing as he falls to his knees on the carpet to avoid yet another approaching tentacle.

“Sorry.” Ben groans, face all scrunched up in worry. “They don’t know what to do with you.”

Diego can’t begin to fathom what that might mean, not when there is a portal in his brother’s stomach that houses this creature at his eye level. He’s not afraid of it, no. Diego knows other places, where things are frightening and unknown. There is a sense of security in the Horror -- they have all felt it, they know what it can do, they know what triggers it to take control of Ben as its vessel in attempts to reach out into this other dimension. Diego knows the Horror and he is relatively familiar with its behaviour. Ben is right: it doesn’t know what to do with him, and the Horror knows _Diego_ too, so that means something has changed. 

It swipes for him again, almost catching Diego by the shoulder as he dodges with some background _Oooohs_ and _Aaaahs_ from Klaus. Diego wheezes with the beginnings of a cough, and his breath is coming in short gasps as he dips under and jumps over his brother’s attacks. To combat this appearance of further weakness he elects to hold his breath for as long as he can manage and hope that it isn’t knocked out of him by the Horror’s movements. 

“Do try and switch it up a bit, Number Two.” His father calls from where he is stood observing on the balconies above. “Constant defense is not the way to victory.”

So when the Horror poises to strike again, Diego rears back and readies to parry it with a slew of thumps to the nearest appendage. He is not expecting much from his hits -- they don’t land particularly well and his fists slip on impact -- but he doesn’t mind all that much, because a trip to the infirmary means Mom will give him something to feel better and he might even be allowed some time to rest. 

Diego’s hopes are dashed, however, as the tentacle that he tried to attack curls up with a sudden, screeching hiss and attempts to retreat back into the portal of Ben’s stomach. 

It is a bizarre sight, one he passes off as a fluke for the sake of not losing any more focus to thoughts of Five. But he is there, always, lost in the back of Diego’s mind; somewhere in the Void, though he does not think that they’re the same place. The sky is wrong, where Five is, and there is something sad that clouds the world. But he can’t tell for certain when it is nothing more than a feeling and not true sight.

Diego doesn’t give it much thought when he swings again, doesn’t even really see himself do it, but he does see another tentacle fall back and is drawn again from thoughts of Five by the utter shock of it all. 

The Horror is a beast and Diego is a fourteen year old boy with moderate to exceptional skills in combat, depending on the day of the week. The contact of his fists should not have this effect, and the Horror seems to agree, for in a final indignant attack that triggers a pained shock from Ben, the Horror stretches a limb towards Diego with such a ferocity that he flinches in preparation of impact. 

It does not come. 

Diego’s eyes open to a blank space, to the horrified face of his brother as the tentacles writhes its way back inside his stomach. The portal in Ben’s middle does not close, but the creature is hesitant in re-emerging. Diego doesn’t quite know what to do so he simply stands, awaiting direction, waiting for anyone to say anything about what just happened.

“Well, Number Two.” His father speaks, and everyone’s necks crane upwards to catch the verdict that is about to leave his mouth. A correct summation of what just happened, no doubt. Dad knows everything (and what he doesn’t know, Diego finds for him). 

“It appears that you have finally proven effective in deflecting projectiles.” This is said with little fanfare, a mere _fact,_ not praise. “Of course, the Horror rarely moves at any great speed, so this is far from the most remarkable of feats. We shall see how you manage under further assessment.”

A noise catches in the back of Luther’s throat that echoes across the space between them and it satisfies Diego greatly for a moment. Number One must be so jealous that Diego has made advancements, and continues to do so, while Luther can only attempt to strengthen the one power he possesses. 

Diego beams under the backhanded compliment, cheeks warm with the effort of concealing a smile (with the heat that has risen and has sweat beading along his buzzed hairline). He looks to Ben then, because this is a good thing. It frightens his brother that the Horror is so hard to control, but Diego can help now, and with further training from Dad, he might be able to wrangle the creature even better than his brother. 

But Ben’s expression does not match his own. He looks uncomfortable, and while this isn’t entirely uncommon post-Horror, his evident uneven breaths and inability to draw his gaze away from Diego are worrying. As the portal in Ben’s stomach closes, Diego sees the creature put small feelers out, before flinching back as though burned.

“You okay?” Diego asks as Dad dismisses them. The others race for showers before dinner and, up in the picture gallery, Vanya is pocketing her whistle, edging away to undoubtedly get some practise in while everyone else wars to be washed. 

Ben shrugs, fixing the buttons of his shirt and, in doing so, finally tearing his gaze from Diego. 

“Do you get what just happened?” Ben says, eyes on the buttons and his fingers as they shake to right them. 

“Yeah, m-man. I curv-curved that shit! How d-d-did it feel?”

Ben shakes his head then and sighs in a way that has Diego wondering if perhaps he was a tad pre-emptive in his pride. 

“You did. Sort of. I won’t tell Dad, don’t worry.”

Diego doesn’t let himself deflate at this; it is more of a pause. Tell Dad _what?_ Ben doesn’t tell Dad much, but he’s always an advocate of including Luther, even when they all fear that Number One will snitch. He doesn’t like to disobey, but Diego figures this must be bad if he’s willing to do so for the sake of it. 

“B, you’ve gotta tell m--me.”

“You didn’t curve it.” Ben spits this out quickly, and steps back as though fearing the repercussions. Diego doesn’t understand. “Well, you did, but not in the way you think.” At Diego’s frown, Ben elaborates further.

“You’re steaming, Diego. You’re too _warm._ And, yeah, I do think your powers had something to do with it, because the Horror just doesn’t _bend_ like that, but you curving it wasn’t the sole cause.”

Ben’s not making any sense. So what? Diego _did_ curve it with his trajectory manipulation but his body heat likely did most of the work? That is so _dumb._ How would the Horror even feel it? Diego’s no warmer than the rest of his siblings, despite Pogo and Mom’s diagnoses regarding his temperature, because he’s risen to be among their number now. He’s no longer living life below ninety-seven fahrenheit. 

“I know it sounds strange, Diego. It’s just--- well… they feel things like that. They’re used to your temperature being a little lower, like Mom says, so I don’t think they liked this very much.”

“Wh-W-W-- Like what?”

Diego doesn’t understand. Yes, he feels the heat too, but he also feels the cold, fiercely, in bouts of shivering that wrack his entire body at night. Little feels right about Diego’s body at present, but how would the Horror _know_ that? Why would it even care?

“You burned them.” Ben insists again. He stops again, frozen before Diego before speaking with a graveness that blankets the room with an inexplicable kind of terror.

“They like it _cold._ ” 

-:-

Five is gone and Klaus is a dead man walking. 

He drags his feet up and down the stairs, hardly bothers with shoes or correctly buttoning his shirts -- Allison does it for him, fussing despite her typical lack of tenderness. They all know he's looking, for Five, that is. And despite everyone's cultivated belief that their brother is dead and gone, Klaus' inability to find him dwindles their beliefs gradually, day by day. Has them believing that Five is out there, somewhere, just isn't ready to come home yet. They know he must be alive. 

What they don't know is that Diego is the one looking for him. _Really_ looking for him, not just some sick excuse for training like what Dad is doing to Klaus. 

"I'll f--f-find him." Diego says, fingers brushing through his brother’s curls, urging him to rest. 

"I'll find him." Diego says, exhausted by fever, soothing Klaus’ heaving as he sobs into Diego’s aching shoulders.

“I promise.”

-:-

It’s a dogged determination that will never leave him. Years from now, Diego will find himself bound, time and time again, to his own fatal will. His inability to cut a string loose, to find himself at the end of a tether, ready to let go. 

He cannot let Five go, for his string bounces in and out of Diego’s dreams. He sees flashes, moments suspended in time of a face that he does not immediately recognise, but would ultimately know in death. 

Diego goes to the bath without complaint, without tears. He finds crevices in which to hide, to drag himself away from the reality of living with five siblings, to find the one that they are missing. Between the bookcases in the library, under the foosball table in the kitchen, atop the moth-eaten furniture in the attic.

He looks in all the wrong places, the right ones only finding him at the worst of times. During training, in the crisp static of the shower; or study time, where the silence stretches a million miles between himself and his siblings, where to utter a single word is a promise of punishment. 

Dad sits behind the desk, where Pogo would usually stand. Mom is making dinner in the kitchen. Luther’s pen swirls such abstract lines out of his strings that he must be doodling in the margins of his Trojan War essay. Klaus is drooling on his own. 

Vanya keeps tucking stray strands of hair behind her ear and Diego thinks she might get Mom to twist it up into a knot again. The style frames her face rather well. Allison kicks her foot, bouncing the sole of her shoe to the curve of her heel, and Diego can almost hear the song that has wormed its way to the inside of her mind, if he tries hard enough. 

Ben does absolutely nothing, gaze frozen on the page before him. Diego would very much like to hold his hand.

One missing. Six out of seven, right before his very eyes. A fatal laceration, a limb missing from their collective body, a portrait above the mantelpiece, one empty desk in the perplexing din of a silent classroom. 

Diego is there too, then he is not. He is somewhere else, taken there by the will of the Void, by the path of the strings that reel him in without mercy.

Suddenly, there is _fire._ And pain. A world made of ash and entirely empty of hope, a world _crushed_ and smited beneath the fist of something so terrifying that Diego cannot bear to truly look at what only he is seeing before him.

His spine straightens, eyes blown wide. Pen clattering to the slope of his desk, five young faces turn towards his own. His father does not move a muscle.

Then Diego finds Five, and he _screams._

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- some serious medical gaslighting in this chapter. i know it's present in most of them, but it is especially harmful this time around  
> \- serious respiratory illness (aspiration pneumonia)  
> \- if there are any other triggers you would like me to tag, please don't hesitate in letting me know!!
> 
> we've made it to chapter eleven, how fitting since stranger things have announced that they're shooting season 4 once more. we're also almost at 50k words which is shocking to me, as this is the longest body of work i've ever written in my life, so i really appreciate you all joining me on this weird journey and taking the time to comment, kudos, subscribe, bookmark, or honestly even clicking on this story in the first place. 
> 
> i have the next few chapters planned out, with some reveals i know some of you have been waiting for! thanks so much for taking the time to read, and have a lovely weekend!!


	12. burn up.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “D-Da-Da-- I found him. Pl-please-- please, I--- ”
> 
> And for a moment, the most brief of moments, and one that Diego will never forget, his father pauses as if to consider. Looks right at Diego and takes in every bewildering inch of him, like there are things in motion here that are vastly beyond previous comprehension. That there is something inside this boy, this subject, that doesn’t wish to get out like the Horror, but wants so viciously to keep Number Two in. 
> 
> Diego holds his father’s hand and, for half a second, his father holds back.

Diego burns. 

A feeling of white hot forever that bleeds into every pore and scorches him blind from the inside out. He knows where he is, and he knows where his mind is, and the two are stretched so thin and far apart that his very being feels at risk of snapping clean in half. 

A million hands touch him, press him down, hold him by the ankles and wrists. Diego thinks he might scream with the agony of it, but he can’t see what is being done to him, no. The placating voices and meaningless comforts are redundant because he is not _there,_ in class with his siblings, with his father watching, slicing pieces from him through his glare alone. 

Diego is not anywhere he knows or has seen before, but it is a place that is bright, too bright, the horizon rippling with heat from fires that surround him; the air is made of dust and smoke and poisoned things and in the middle of it all, knees to the rubble all bloody and torn is the one person that Diego has been looking for this whole time. 

_Five,_ he yells. 

_FiveFiveFive._

He screams, something tearing inside his throat with the pure edge of it. A feeling of reaching and reaching and scrambling for purchase in this place that is too far away from now, a place that lacks sense and has kept his brother -- his viciously independent and unfettered brother -- trapped; stuck with his fingers in the dirt, burrowing into the rubble of a fallen city. 

The air is made of sulfur and cracks bleed into the dry ground without mercy or reprieve for his brother’s crimson fingertips. How he scrambles for purchase, curled into a ball, and all Diego can do is look on as Five twists into a phantom version of himself who has nothing left to hold onto. 

_Five,_ he shouts. 

_Five,_ he screams; throat raw and chest empty. 

**_Five._ **

It is then that Five looks up, hair white with dust and falling over his dark eyes. Eyes that meet Diego’s across a canyon of soot, hands that uproot from the ground and reach across, as if to grab his own.

Then there is a pinch to Diego’s arm that feels like a bruise and he falls back into the blackness. 

-:-

“-- heat syncope, Sir. His legs require immediate elevation.”

Diego keens at the sound of Mom’s voice, a wail that violently forces through him and sends his limbs crashing upwards, seeking contact and any semblance of comfort. His fingers scramble and search for purchase in the crumbled earth that surrounded Five, but all that meets his digits are starchy sheets that send his nerves haywire upon impact. 

He jolts up, eyes wide yet unseeing. He is in the infirmary, with Mom and Dad and Pogo and-- and then he is somewhere else, every part aflame, blistering his skin and his insides, dousing his lungs in gasoline. 

Diego feels that he might be breathing entirely too much or not at all; that if he were to inhale now he might poison himself with the sulfurous air, that he _has_ to inhale, for how his ribcage trembles as Mom lays a cool palm flat to his chest. 

“-- ther! Grab his legs, sweetheart.” 

He is pinned flat like a plank, and try as he might, Diego cannot escape this cruel embrace. There is a montage of needles before his eyes and a prick to the crook of his elbow. He doesn’t want that, no, not those feelings and the thoughts that they carry. He doesn’t want a mask over his mouth and nose and Dad’s face hovering above him like a blinding sun. His monocle, a reflection of the red, hot blood that Diego can taste on his tongue, clogging his throat and nostrils and leaking out into the mask as he struggles to pry it from his face. 

_Five,_ he says, caught between a croak and a shout; but the hissing vapour from his mask swallows any strength from his voice.

Dad looks down at him with an unfamiliar expression. He is assessing, studying Diego as the tremors wrack him and his body burns. Everyone else is doing something, trying to make it better, and Dad simply stares, as if Diego is something he doesn’t particularly wish to deal with. As if Diego is something _wrong_ and in need of removing. 

Like Vanya is wrong and got shunned for it. Like Five was wrong and got _stuck._

_FiveFiveFiveFive._

A constant loop, nothing else can be said. It doesn’t occur to Diego that anything else ought to be uttered as he reaches blindly for his father, to grab his hand and implore that Number Five is in need of assistance. That Number Five is not yet dead but he is _dying,_ and he _will_ die if Dad doesn’t just _listen_ to Diego and help find him. 

Diego’s fingers grasp at cold, slender ones, wrinkled and lined with protruding veins like the hands he first touched so long ago on his inaugural trip to the bath. He squeezes with a kind of desperation he knows better than to reveal to his father, but times and feelings like this are a rare exception, a worthy one that require immediate attention; not to be brushed off as the fantasies and whims of _Number Two,_ who is _pathetically eager_ for _any sense of self-importance._

“D-Da-Da-- I found him. Pl-please-- please, I--- ”

And for a moment, the most brief of moments, and one that Diego will never forget, his father pauses as if to consider. Looks right at Diego and takes in every bewildering inch of him, like there are things in motion here that are vastly beyond previous comprehension. That there is something inside this boy, this subject, that doesn’t wish to get out like the Horror, but wants so viciously to keep Number Two in. 

Diego holds his father’s hand and, for half a second, his father holds back. 

Then it is gone from his grasp and the hand meets his cheek instead in a sudden slap, followed swiftly by a backhand. Dad’s rings catch on his eyebrow and Diego’s vision is obscured by the blood that comes spilling out. He is frozen, but hardly surprised. There are gasps from corners that Diego cannot see into, cries and whimpers and quiet _shushes_ as Mom immediately pounces on him to right his father’s wrongs, as always. 

She dabs gently with a cotton pad, damp, though Diego can’t tell as much for the sweat that pours out of him. She hums and hushes and touches in the gentlest of ways, calls him fond names, calls him brave, and it is all one grand distraction. 

Dad has stepped back. Dad is likely waiting for the first excuse to leave the room. Dad is blocking Diego’s view of whoever else is present and looking right through him like everything that’s happening to him and to Five means absolutely nothing. 

“Da-Dad-- Dad, _please._ ” 

He begs, knocking against Mom and sending her back a slight step before she readies herself once more. Diego reaches for his father and scrambles from the cot, palms of his hand reaching a metal tray before any efforts of escape are made redundant by the fact that he can’t move his legs. 

They’re not pinned by hands now, but by cuffs. Like the ones in the bath, the ones that keep him tethered to every bad thing he sees in the dark. 

He grabs for them, the pain of his chest limiting his reach. He scrapes at skin and pulls too hard and reopens wounds that had only just healed. He hits at the cuffs with poorly formed fists and kicks and _kicks,_ even though it is futile, even as Mom tries to calm him and Pogo tries to placate. Even as Dad stares on; unconcerned, indifferent. 

“Leave, children!”

All but one, that Diego can see. A blur of a brother who is ordered to do things that Diego cannot hear. A one track mind, he yearns so blindly for the absence of his cuffs, can do nothing as he is yanked towards the stiff mattress, back slamming down hard and shocking his body into a brief submission with the pain that consumes him. 

Hands pin his arms and metal cuffs clamp his wrists. He screams and he writhes, head slamming back against the stiff pillow. He yanks at his restraints despite their slicing and he’s certain that he bites too. 

It is then that it comes -- with the heat that overwhelms, the smell of poison in the air, the feeling of a body lit up by the fire of a burning planet.

Diego’s father does not have nice hands. His hands hurt. His left one pins Diego’s head to the mattress as the other one produces a needle, one that pierces the thin skin of his neck and blackens his vision like spotted ink on parchment paper. 

Someone cries, though it doesn’t feel like it’s him. As the sedative washes over him, stronger and faster than usual, Diego doesn’t feel much of anything but the heat of a place that he cannot possibly be. A place that Five shouldn’t be, but is trapped within regardless.

His limbs fall loose and every hold on him slowly releases. The rubber grip of the oxygen mask pinches at his jaw and cuts against the soft skin of his ears, and he’d like to tell Mom to take it off, that it doesn’t matter at all because he knows what’s about to happen. 

But before he has the chance, darkness slips across his shoulder like a shroud and he finally stops breathing. 

-:-

Five collects corpses. Four of them, buried beneath the weight of a broken building and obscured from Diego’s sight. 

He is so small, smaller than Diego, and he’s digging all the time. He’s vicious in how he handles the rubble, even the pieces he can barely manage to lift. He cries into the collar of his dusty Academy uniform, tears getting trapped in the fold of the bandana that’s been wrapped around his mouth and tied at the greasy nape of his neck. 

Diego looks at him for what feels like the longest time, takes in the crooked hunch of his shoulders, the blooded scuffs on his knees. Their uniforms had never been practical, both Allison and Klaus had raised the point countless times, and yet their father insisted that they were appropriate wear for missions and every day. Five’s is in tatters, hems ripped jaggedly and fabric worn thin in a way that would have Mom tutting and immediately reaching for her sewing box. 

Diego would like to reach for Five, grab him and take him home by whatever road it is that winds through the Void. But it is not a place that he’s ever seen another person like himself, someone who can go _between._ But Five would know, he’d understand the physics or whatever of it all and he’d be able to make his way home to them, where they can all be together and things won’t seem so far beyond the reaches of hope. 

But Five can’t see him this time; and the first thing that tells Diego the truth of this is that his brother is actually crying, openly, as if there isn’t a single soul around to see it. Five used to tease them for it, say it is a thing for babies, that there are much worse things out there in the universe worth crying over than a split lip or a broken arm. 

As if Diego doesn’t _know._ Knows better than any of them, maybe. Does Five not realise that he’s here, that he can see all of this and how entirely alone he is, or does he just not care? 

Clouded with fever from flames that he shouldn’t be able to feel, Diego is bitter and he is paranoid. He is lost to this version of the world where his brother is trapped and yes, he wants Five back, but he wants out of this place too. 

It hurts to _be_ here, like he is so far out of place, stretched beyond the limits of space and time that he ought to be able to live in, but that Five is somehow, slowly but surely adapting to. Diego’s mind is pulled taut to breaking, a string that won’t snap clean in half but will burn at both ends until there is nothing left in the middle. 

The Void shouldn’t hurt him, it never has, so maybe that’s not where he is; maybe he’s gone further. Regardless, Diego cannot be here any longer, for how it’s eating away at him, burning his bones marrow deep and singing the lining of his lungs when before, breathing had never been something worth worrying about. 

Five is a boy out of time, a place further than any of them can comprehend, but he is there wholly. Every part of him is in this crumbling vortex of decay and nothingness, of entirely too much death and destruction, while half of Diego is elsewhere. 

If he reaches far enough, allows the Void and whatever entity controls it to take hold of him with its million hands, Diego could be there with his brother; every ounce of him. The others, they won’t be alone. And Vanya will have Mom if all else fails. But Five is without a single soul to keep him company, and perhaps Diego was the one to find him because Diego is the one who’s meant to be with him. Stay with him. Keep him safe from the horrors of this new world that keep their Number Five up at night, crying into the blouse of half a mannequin. 

Five, who shovels another heap of ashen earth and rubble over his shoulder and into the wind, whose eyes water with the atmosphere and tears he is usually so unwilling to shed. He hiccups, a broken little sob into the crook of his elbow, hidden and kept there as though it’s a secret that requires hiding, and it is then that Diego makes his decision. 

He reaches, a blind and full-bodied thing, into the place that he cannot be. Into the time that he’s not meant to exist. Cuffs pull him back, tight and unrelenting, but he can see Five. Five is there, digging and crying and curling up on the dirt in front of crooked gates with warped, wrought-iron umbrellas. 

Five is there and, quite suddenly, Diego is too. But there is a fall, a misstep, and then Diego is nowhere at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wound up having to split this again, so the wait on the next chapter won't be as long. i guess this is an obligatory whumptober chapter, because all diego is doing is laying in bed and suffering on another mental plane of existence. i hope you enjoyed!!!! jk. i know you all hate cliffhangers, so i hope this isn't one? idk. i feel like it is. but closure for this specific chapter of suffering in diego's life is on its way. 
> 
> thanks so much again for the lovely comments. i straight up choked at some of them!


	13. who knows what they contain?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the longest time, there is nothing. Nothing but Diego in the _Void_ and the reality of what he is about to do. The string he is about to cut for the sake of following another. 
> 
> Five is there, the final image of him, desperate and pleading, loving and longing, and then he is simply not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is a long one. whether you’ve seen stranger things or not, [THIS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO7-6kJNlqI) is an excellent reference for how i saw diego and five’s (and also all general void) scenes while writing them. spoilers for st2 if you haven’t seen it, but nothing major. 
> 
> triggers are in the end notes!

His toes curl in the shallow waters of the _Void._ Frozen to numbing, gooseflesh rising in tiny bumps up the length of his body. 

The cuffs are gone but their mark remains. Diego looks down at his skin, bare chest and wrinkled uniform shorts, and notices that the mottled red has faded to a patchy purple. It is colder here. Diego hadn’t noticed in all his visits, maybe because he’s never been so hot before. 

_They like it cold,_ that’s what Ben had said. And for some reason, Diego likes it too. 

The static here is different, unlike the kind that spurs him into fits of clarity, the one that Dad uses to trigger entry to the _Void_ and help him find bad people who do senseless things. It’s tangible, worming its way into his ear from mere feet away. 

A blue tarp hangs crookedly, balanced by a stack of books and some broken shelving. The colour is striking in the black of the _Void,_ punctuated by the sharp azure, plastic sheet rustling in a soft wind that Diego cannot feel, a familiar tune humming from someone inside, interrupted occasionally by a crackle of static. 

_“I think we’re alone now.”_

_“The beating of our hearts is the only sound…”_

Diego approaches on wobbly legs, joints aching with the motion, shoulders trembling. He clears his throat softly, for the fear of what might come ripping out if he allows himself a cough, and hunches slightly with the pain that is spikes in his chest. 

A gust of wind lifts the tarp high enough for Diego to slip under. It grazes the buzzed hairs on his head on the way down, a slight tickle that shakes him more than he can think about in the moment. He can’t typically feel things here. 

But it drives him with some sense of hope as he kneels before the mass of rags that make up his brother. Five’s face is dirty and his hair is longer, as far as Diego can tell, as it sprouts from beneath the hat he is wearing and curls with the breeze that passes through. Next to him, there is a wireless radio, tucked in amongst a pile of cardboard and cans of food, and a mannequin, bald of any wig and wearing a sparkly blouse, like the ones Allison and Klaus circle in their magazines. 

“Five.” Diego says, softer than all the times before. 

“ _Five_.” He says again, more insistent, anxious.

And his brother hears him, though perhaps not in the way he intended. Five’s chin jerks sharply upwards from its previous place on his chest and his eyes dart directly towards the wireless radio perched among his collection. 

“Wha--- ” His brother startles, typically sharp and severe voice worn and wavering from disuse. “Yes, Delores, I _know._ Ghost channels are common and my name is even more common, but don’t you think that sounded like--- ”

“Five?” Diego doesn’t know how it is that his brother can hear him. How the breeze that shouldn’t exist in the _Void_ has him shivering, how he is _here,_ when before, to be here hurt him so very much. 

“Two?”

“Five, it’s m-me, I-- I’m _here---_ ”

“Wait, where? Where are you? You can’t _be_ here, Diego, I saw…” 

Five is scrambling around the makeshift space, reaching for the radio and clutching it between dry and broken fingers. He can’t see Diego, probably thinks Diego can’t even hear him, because it’s a radio that broadcasts, not the kind that they’ve seen the police force use when they provide a perimeter for missions. 

“Tell me where you are. Are you safe? _Christ,_ Two, what are you-- ”

Diego sits at this, water from the _Void’s_ floor seeping into his pants. There’s some small part of him that feels upset, thought that Five of all people would be happy to see him. That he’d understand what was going on and join the dots because clearly he’s older now, and that he’d be able to help Diego bring him home. 

“What, did you w-w-want w-wuh--- Luther instead?” Diego huffs, looking up as Five rolls his eyes. “Gonna _punch_ your w-wway out of this shithole?”

“Are you the same age as when I left or do you simply never mature past this point?” Five says, dryly. Like they’re in the kitchen and he’s watching his brothers argue over who’s earned the last of Mom’s pancakes.

“Screw you!” Diego says, glaring, even though Five can’t see him. “I’ve been looking for you all this time, I… I found you.” 

By himself, fever hot and dying. It had felt like that --- something that Diego has imagined a million times over. Death isn’t so much an inevitability as a memory; something close to what he felt as his reach for Five became just that bit too far and snapped him clean in two. 

“And how _exactly_ did you manage to do that?” Five says this sharply, with a kind of edge to it that spells out the fact that he has most definitely thought this through. That he, to a degree, has realised where it is that Diego goes at night; though he hasn’t yet cracked the entire truth. 

“I fou-- I found you in m-my head.” Is what Diego says, because that’s the truth of it, though not in its entirety. 

“In your-- ” Here, Five cuts himself off with a laugh. A bitter one, regularly saved for the likes of Klaus or Luther. 

“Is that what this is?” Five says, not to the radio now but to the walls of the makeshift tent around them. Diego thinks he did a pretty good job, though he’d always been the best at Dad’s survival simulations. 

“Of all the people to hallucinate… to play the part of my conscience…” Five laughs again and Diego flinches at how sharp it is. “Allison seems like a better fit for the role, no? Or the moral Ben. Or even _Luther_ \-- holier than thou and bossing me around.”

Diego frowns into the bend of his elbow, where they rest upon tucked up legs. Doesn’t Five get it? He thinks maybe Ben does, or the Horror at the very least. But Five had really seemed like he was grasping everything Diego was so unwilling to say before he left. Or perhaps it was that Diego put far too much faith in his brother, who, like him, is still merely a boy.

“It’s not-- I’m _real,_ Five. I’m here, just-- just not in the same w-wway as you.”

Five doesn’t say anything and simply stares into the blankness beyond, darkness as far as Diego’s eyes can see. Diego considers the vastness of this, the likelihood of him finding his brother ever again in the labyrinthine confusion of the _Void,_ in this new and charred world, and everything comes spilling out. 

“I’m sick, you rem-m-remember that, duh-don’t you? Wh-When you left I was-- I was really sick.”

“Didn’t you get better? Mom said you would.” Five’s dirty face scrunches, but the grime isn’t enough to hide the heat in his cheeks, the way his skin has peeled and blistered over time.

“No, no it’s… it’s so muh-much w-w-worse. It’s so _hot_ where you are, I c-ca-- I feel it all the time.” Diego shakes with it, the truth crawling out and rearing its ugly head. But Five can’t see him. Can only hear as Diego’s voice trembles, stutter not having improved in the slightest since he left. 

“B-Ben said _They_ felt it too.”

“The Horror?” Five sits again, seemingly exhausted. Diego can’t see, but it’s apparent that under the layers of clothing that Five is made of skin and bone. There is no food here, there can’t be.

“Uh huh.” Diego sniffles, wishing there was a way he could bring things to Five. Mom would put together a care package, with cinnamon biscuits and peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches that Vanya would make. And sure, it wouldn’t be the most nutritious of meals, but at least it would make Five feel good.

“I wo-won a fight with _Them._ ” Diego laughs and it’s a watery thing. “You sh-shoulda’ seen Luther’s face.”

Five laughs along and for a moment, it’s quite nice. The sorrow of the moment, the longing he feels to reach out and touch his brother, knowing that to do so would only result in heartbreak, is overwhelming. But he can look at Five, take every inch of him in and see the things that are wrong, are hurt, that will need fixing with an immediate trip to the infirmary upon his return.

“I will see it. I will.” Five says this more to himself than anyone else, like Diego or the half-mannequin elegantly perched by his side. “You shouldn’t push yourself. I don’t know how you're here, though I suppose it makes sense, all things considered. She knew very little about your predicament, it seems. But I’m not at that part yet.”

Diego tries to interrupt, because what else is there to consider? Who is _she?_ But Five carries on as if musing aloud. 

“Though I imagine that much of it requires context and we’ve always been very one-sided in our perspectives on things. Everything is subjective, though we try to convince ourselves it’s not.”

Five is talking nonsense, so Diego focuses on earlier mentions. “Da-Dad is pushing. Not m-me.” 

It’s colder, suddenly; impossibly so in such a place. It’s the kind of thing that seeps into his bones and conflicts heavily with the feeling he’d grown so accustomed to when in Five’s proximity: of burning alive from the inside out. “I just wan-wanted to find you.”

Five sighs and Diego wishes for nothing more than to touch him. A hug, a shove, anything. “Well, you have. You did it. You found me. Beat Luther, to boot.”

Later, Diego will realise that his brother was humouring himself. That Five figured Diego to be an easily pleased figment of his imagination, a mirage of Number Two in this seering wasteland. But right now, Diego is lulled into calm by the _Void,_ by the presence of his brother who is likely still relatively equal in age but has always seemed older by eons. 

He is soothed by Five’s words, despite how the cold is spreading from the tips of his toes and all the way up his legs; by the way Five implied his return home in praising Diego’s success over Luther’s. There would be a warmth in his chest if not for the familiar ice that is slowly encroaching on the cavernous space. But the concept of the feeling is nice, lukewarm and no longer at boiling point, and he allows himself a small smile at the possibility of it. 

He found Five. All by himself. In this place that is not now or then, but somewhere far off into a place that no other can yet see. It is an awful place in which Diego does not belong, in which his brother is stuck; but Diego _found_ him, he can _talk_ to him, so surely there is a way to bring him back?

“You should rest, Diego. Recharge.” Five is looking straight ahead and can likely see the landscape beyond, a burning city scorching the horizon, but Diego sees nothing but an inky black, and his eyelids shutter at the sight of it. “I’ll call when I need you.”

Yes, that’s it. Easy as pie. He can find Five through the static of the radio whenever he wants; he can hold tight to this string and everything will be okay. Diego’s shoulder slump with the weight that lifts from him, rid of tension and worry, and he smiles, even though he knows Five won’t see it. 

“Okay, Five. Buh-bye for-- for now.”

“For now, Two.”

-:-

There is a needle in his arm, an IV that makes him feel sick to his stomach. It’s like the one from the bath that Dad gives him when he’s there for a particularly long stint, but this one doesn’t tug as he bobs up and down in the water, no. It’s harmless. Mom gave it to him.

“Easy does it, darling.” 

Diego can’t grasp how it was that Mom got him to the bathroom by herself, but he’s seen her carry Klaus and Ben before as if they weighed nothing at all. He’s not sure if he ought to be embarrassed by the fact, but it’s only the two of them now, which is always best. 

With her presence, he’s not afraid of how the water feels around him. It’s cold and he’s shaking, but Diego’s skin is still hot, burning slightly with something just under the surface. It looks blistered in his blurred vision, mottled by the chunks of ice that float in the water of the bathtub, but it might be his imagination. 

Five’s skin looked blistered too. Diego forces himself to think about something else. 

The needle has him feeling faint, so he looks to Mom instead, a beam of gold in the bathroom’s blue grey. One hand curls around the rim of the bath while the other presses flat to his forehead.

“One-oh-one point three eight degrees fahrenheit. Body water percentage climbing. Dilated pupils indicative of higher dosage proving more effective than previous attempts.” She smiles down at him, a dusty rose today, muted and an ease to his half-lidded eyes. “An improvement.”

“MM-Ma-Mo-- ” 

“Now, now, my _brave_ boy.” Mom checks the bathtub’s temperature with the sensors in her palms. “You mustn’t strain yourself. Ah!” 

She perks up, smile growing ever wider. Diego is desperate to match it. “Vanya, my angel, did you fetch the items for me?”

“Yes, well, uh… I got his pajamas.” Vanya begins, self-consciously, like she thinks that Diego has enough energy to be mad at her for rooting through his stuff. “But I thought the long sleeves might be too warm so I brought this instead.”

It’s Luther’s, a short-sleeved shirt big enough to swim around the tops of Diego’s thighs if he elects to wear it. She must have taken it without asking, because Luther would never just give it over, no. Number One doesn’t _share._

“He offered, actually.” Vanya responds. _Did he say that out loud?_ “He thought because the material is soft it, uh, wouldn’t _burn_ you.”

“F-Five’s burn-- he, he’s burning.”

“Five isn’t here, silly.” Mom tuts fondly, standing from her crouch at the edge of the bathtub with an air of elegance. Diego wants to argue with her, but he’s never been very good at correcting his mother. “I’ll go fetch your medicine. Vanya, would you mind staying with your brother for _just_ a moment?”

Vanya nods and Diego does his best to hide in all the water and ice. His limbs won’t bend to his will and sit stiff in the tub, and he’s got briefs on so it’s not like it’s a big deal, but being without a shirt during training and being without a shirt when you’re shaking and sniffling and allowing words to fall out of your mouth like marbles, well, there is an awful sense of exposure to it. 

“How are you feeling?” Vanya tries, hands clasped before her in an awkward mock of their morning line up, before she seemingly decides it best to kneel at his eye level.

His throat burns, raw from overuse, perhaps, though he doesn’t remember saying all that much. “I don-don’t--- I’m fine. I really am.”

Vanya looks away, down at her twiddling thumbs, like she’s weighing up her options and deciding how best to proceed. 

“You weren’t fine before. It was-- it was really scary, Diego.” She’s looking at him now, as if to convince him of this truth. Like she thinks maybe he wasn’t all there at the time --- and he _wasn’t,_ but it was scary for him too. “Allison’s been crying on and off for hours. She won’t even let Luther in her room.”

Which is bizarre, because Luther and Allison are together ninety-percent of the time. It’s weird, and something each of them avoid talking about out of fear of the repercussions; namely being pummelled into the wall or rumoured into doing something embarrassing. But Allison is hardly ever mad at Luther and, typically, when she’s upset, he is the first person she will seek out. 

“Why? Wha-- what happened?”

“Well…” Her hesitance has an obvious source --- it’s not like any of them, particularly the non-confrontational Number Seven, have ever been eager to start problems between Numbers One and Two. But Diego hasn’t enough energy to pounce on it, so he nods for her to carry on. 

“Luther helped Dad, uh, calm you down in the infirmary. I get why the others are mad, I do.” Her palms smooth the pleats in her skirt and again, she is looking at anything but Diego. “But it’s not as if Luther had much of a choice in the matter.”

Diego doesn’t say anything in response to that, because he doesn’t much feel like talking about it. Absently, he notes the tug of stitches in his left brow, tender and fresh. Thoughts on this _must_ remain absent, or his gut will roll and his mouth will water and his eyes will fly towards the back of his skull as the world becomes black again. 

So, he hones his focus on other things. He counts each breath and watches as the chips of ice melt away into the water he’s submerged in. He doesn’t look at Vanya, but he can feel how her hands move and fidget with discomfort. She is likely desperate for Mom’s return, Diego is too, but not for the same reasons. 

“Did you really find him?” Vanya suddenly blurts and Diego’s head turns to note how she immediately appears to regret it. “Five, I mean.”

Diego nods. Yes, his sister has been so obvious in her deep longing for their missing brother’s return, but such things are rarely so abruptly discussed in the Hargreeves’ mansion. To speak about Five is taboo --- Diego learned that the hard way. 

Vanya dips her chin then, but she meets his eyes nonetheless. “Well, where is he? Is he hurt? Can he come home?”

“Five is burning.” Diego repeats his earlier statement, because that is all that occurs to him. He left his brother behind in a place that is burning because he got _tired._ Because Five told him to rest. _Pathetic._

“Like… somewhere hot? Was there a fire?”

“No. No _fire._ ” Because Five could simply _jump_ out of a fire --- he’d done as much on many a mission. “Five is stuck in a place that is wr-wro-wrong. It’s _wrong_ and I can-- I can’t get there all the time in m-my head, V.”

“In your head…” Vanya is careful and Diego’s not sure why. He doesn’t need to be treated as if he’s fragile, not when it feels as if he’s on the road to recovery. He’s not ordinary --- he has special powers that make him more able to withstand illness and attack. He’s stronger than normal people; stronger than _her._

“ _Yes,_ in my- my _head._ I w-wuh-went there and I found him and I know D-D-Dad does-doesn’t believe me, but he’s _afraid._ ”

Vanya flinches at this. It’s bold of him to say, something he shouldn’t say at all, but Diego knows that it’s true. He saw it in his father’s eyes, right before he whacked Diego across the face. 

“Went _where,_ Diego? Mom says you go places sometimes --- like daydreaming. Maybe you were… daydreaming about Five?”

There is something in the way that Diego’s siblings tiptoe around particular topics. Dad likes to point these things out to make a spectacle of him --- how he can hardly ever keep up with his academics, how his mind wanders in class and in meals and in training, his stutter. And it can make the other numbers uncomfortable sometimes; it can make them think things about him that simply aren’t true. 

Because Diego’s not lazy or stupid, he’s not deficient in any way that his father likes to complain about and, most importantly, he’s not _daydreaming._ Dad knows this. He’s read Diego’s journals and has taken information from him that must be valuable for how he continues to seek it out, but still, he feeds the other numbers nonsense about whatever spontaneous fit at the dinner table being solely the result of a wandering mind that is lazy and languorous. 

And they all believe him. Every single time. 

“Fuck you, Vanya.” Diego cares little for the way her face falls, how she slips back onto her haunches in shock. How Mom may be just around the corner, ready to reprimand him for his foul language. 

“Diego, I--- ”

“ _No._ ” He interrupts her, like each of them always interrupt him. “I w-went to the place wh-wh-where Five is, for _r-rreal._ Everything is gone -- _everything_ \--- and he’s the only w-wuh-- _person_ left.”

Vanya’s face is flushed and her eyes are wide. She’s nodding, like she gets it, like everything he’s saying makes total sense. She stands to busy herself with something, but Diego keeps talking, like he can make the words make sense if he says them all aloud. 

“I got him on the r-r-radio. Not in the ordinary w-way you wuh-would, but, like, I c-could _see_ him. He just c-c-couldn’t see _me._ ” Diego implores this, because he doesn’t want her thinking that it’s some back and forth situation, like she can talk to Five through a radio too. But she is silent, worrying over the pile of towels she brought with her earlier. 

“That’s wh-why I’m like this, V. I know M-Mom is saying stuff, and D-Da-Dad is saying that I may-make it all up, but it’s all r-r-real.”

“Okay.” Vanya says as she coaxes him into lifting his head so she can place a rolled towel underneath. 

“You-- You believe me?”

She hums in response, hands removing one of his own from the water so she can squeeze at his palms with her fingers; to work the tension out and warm him up again. 

“Promise?”

Vanya pauses then, the slightest of falters, only to right her expression immediately and continue to attend to him like she’s seen Mom do a million times over. 

“I believe you, Diego.”

Years from now, Vanya will write a book and in that book she will detail this very moment as a time when she thought her brother had become lost too, just like the fifth of their number. Paranoid delusions, wide, rolling eyes, and words that were broken and bitten off at the ends. 

She will write of an illness, months long, that consumed her brother to the point of rendering him unrecognisable. Something that did not begin with the disappearance of Number Five but with the emergence of a previously unknown power, that dragged him deep into a black hole of depression and obsession, of anger and instability, that wrecked him so insidiously that she constantly found herself in speculation of exactly how long he had been keeping all of it inside. 

And Diego will hate her for it. 

But for now, Diego believes that she believes him, and it is enough.

-:-

Five looks different. Older. Older than any of them, aside from Allison or Vanya or sometimes even Luther, have ever imagined being. 

Diego can’t always see the bigger picture when he’s in the _Void,_ so all he is aware of is that Five is sitting on a chair. A big, cushy thing with the frame exposed in places and bits of stuffing spilling out in clouds of charred white. He’s got his right leg thrown up over his left and a book in hand, one that looks as if it had been taken from their home library --- hard and leather bound, old enough to survive most things. 

“Well, humour me then, how is everyone?” 

Five asks this like they’re sitting at home in his room, entirely out of character, chatting idly about their latest game of hide and seek, or how Klaus can’t see to keep his sticky fingers out of Allison’s accessories. 

“B-Ben finally finished _Ulysses_.” Diego begins, certain that it’s the kind of news Five would want to know about. When he and Diego used to hang out, it was usually in silence. They never did have much in common, so the least he can do is tell Five of things he has actual personal investment in.

Five glances up from his book, his finger in the middle of turning a page. He’s looking in the wrong direction, of course, but it does add a shred of normalcy to the situation. “What age are you now?” 

“Fourteen, still.” 

“Still? You really don’t wait around, do you?” Five shakes his head like he must _know_ Diego can see him. Diego wonders what age _he_ is. “It didn’t take him as long as I thought, then. What did he think of it?”

“He hated it.” Diego blurts out, regretting for only a moment before remembering that Five always appreciated honesty, particularly if the laugh that bursts forth is anything to go off of. 

“He’ll never say it. The others all think he love-loved it, because he k-keeps saying so, but I c-can tell.”

“Never knew you to be much of an observer, Two.” 

Five goes back to his book, eyes glancing through the lines like he’s read it all before. He seems out of sorts, though perhaps it really has been a long time for Five. Diego can see it clearly in how he moves, the way he cuts his movements off as if convincing himself to sit still, to stay focused in this moment for as long as he can. How he sometimes whispers under his breath, a bitter mumble, his mind seemingly elsewhere. Diego can relate to that, so he chooses not to comment. 

“It’s d-di-different now, w-with you gone.” Harder, stricter. Training is worse and Dad is relentless, Ben is only trying to make things that bit easier for himself. “D-Dad likes Joyce, so I think B-Ben just wa-wants to m-make him happy.”

“Nothing will make that old bastard happy, Diego. _Nothing._ ” Five startles him, though there is no witness to confirm this. Still, Diego’s arms squeeze tighter around his shins as his brother stands, fuelled by some kind of rage that Diego has yet to understand.

“You understand that, don’t you? I wish you all would. Whatever it is that he’s making you do, Diego, that’s making you so sick, it’s not worth it, okay? You sitting in a tank for hours on end is never going to make him happy because he doesn’t _fee--_ ” Five’s head falls into his right hand before he shakes it from side to side. Diego desperately wants for him to finish the sentence, but Five cuts his tangent short and elects to begin again. 

“You’re not an experiment, Diego. You are a person.” Five’s voice breaks as he says this to empty air, not a soul around him except the invisible boy sat in the shallow waters of the _Void,_ knees to his chest and tears spilling over onto the heat of his cheeks. 

“How’d you know about-- about the b-bath?” He asks, triggering a burst of static from the radio with how his breath stutters on something caught in his throat. 

“The bath? That’s what you call it?” What _else_ would he call it? “ _Jesus._ ” 

Five looks so tired, worn thin and to the bone, bruised and calloused with markings worse than what any of them had never earned in training. He pauses, as if to collect himself and consider his words, where before he would have spat them out in a quick and masterful succession that Diego was constantly envious of. 

“I guessed. I know we had the pool, but it’s not exactly the most practical thing, not when there’s so much to consider.”

Diego accepts this, because he’d had himself convinced that Five was on the cusp of figuring it out before he got stuck. He’s always been able to see the connections between things where other’s often can’t, where Diego only can because of the advantage of his powers. 

“Are you there right now?”

“Wh-Where?”

“The _bath?_ ”

Diego turns his head towards his brother, mouth slightly agape. Never before had he heard the word uttered in the correct context by anyone other than Mom and Dad, and occasionally Pogo. It jars him in a way that he can’t quite understand, but there is an ounce of relief than accompanies it. 

“No… I don-- I don’t know wh-where I am.”

“Well.” Five turns then, a full one-eighty in his previous back and forth to look Diego dead in the eyes, despite undoubtedly not knowing where he is. There is a softness to his gaze, a kind of seriousness that he hadn’t before dignified this conversation with. Diego knows this look, it’s one that means Five is toiling with something, usually something that he can’t possibly fix, at least not now. Frustration paints his dark brow a concerned frown at the notion of something being beyond his control and beyond his reach. When he speaks, it’s a gentle and urging thing, tender in a way that the Hargreeves children have never been familiar with. 

Diego aches to hold Five’s hand, if only for a second. 

“You should go home, Diego. I know it’s hurting you to be here. I’m glad you’ve found me but there’s only so much either of us can do.” Five sighs, like it’s paining him to say all of this; not out of embarrassment for the vulnerability but because it’s simply too much. 

“ _I_ believe you, I do. I know that you’re here, but I think that you shouldn’t be. So, get home. Let Mom help you, okay?”

The moment hangs between them, a static lull over the radio that becomes the loudest thing in the _Void,_ that pins the entirety of Diego’s focus on Five and the pleading look that he has fixed so intensely on what appears to be thin air. 

“O-Okay.” Diego nods and Five nods back, like it’s real, like both brothers can see each other, not just the one; like going home and staying home is something that Diego has any control over at all. 

“Okay.”

-:-

Allison’s missing.

That’s what Klaus tells Diego as he takes advantage of Number Two’s fevered state in order to paint his toenails a deep purple. They’re in the infirmary still and the windows are open. Sticky tracks mark Klaus' face, black with old mascara, and Diego knows he’s been crying. 

His hands shake as he paints a lick of plum onto Diego’s big toe and rubs any smudges off with his thumb. A crooked smile, a bitter thing, as he tells of how Dad made him check, to see if Allison is still alive. How he told everyone that she was, but that he couldn’t pull himself together for long enough to be of any more use on the matter. 

“Benerino said I should tell you, since you’re all --- stop _wriggling_ \-- out of the loop on things.” Klaus’ tongue sticks out of his mouth with the level of absolute concentration it’s requiring to finish this task. He won’t look at Diego. 

“And I said _well, maybe someone should go on and tell Vanny._ Meaning Ben, of course, you know how the pair of them have been since Fi-- _uh,_ since everything.” Klaus pauses, like he thinks he’s struck a match, like Diego’s about to explode into flames right before his eyes. 

But it’s not like that anymore -- he can feel how the city breeze blows in through the crack in the window. It’s cold, still, though winter has passed and they are well on their way into spring. There is a bite to it that makes Diego’s bones ache, a kind of crispness that is so unlike that which he has felt over the last-- well, however long he has been this way -- that it cannot be anything but the world carrying on, thriving, spinning and growing. 

“And, _get this,_ it turns out that Vanya was the one who noticed Allie was missing in the first place.” Klaus lifts the brush, admiring his work, before finally turning to Diego following his slip like this is some really valuable knowledge. 

“She, like, went _straight_ to Dad and told him all about it, and now he wants us to find her. Which, obviously, I want, but it’s not like he made us look for Five or anything.” 

Diego’s fingers pinch at the sheet beneath the quilt that Mom has tucked tightly around him. He’s not tied to the bed anymore, but the damage the restraints did has left his skin sensitive and raw to the touch. Klaus was careful of that when he tucked the blanket up to reveal Diego’s feet, but Klaus is rarely careful about much else, his words least of all.

Or maybe it’s that he doesn’t remember how Diego cradled him, how Diego said he’d find Five and _kept_ his promise. People rarely listen when Diego actually manages to speak, or they simply choose to ignore. But what reason would his siblings have to believe him when Dad has kept the truth of his powers and their extent so well hidden? Particularly when Diego has facilitated all of the secret-keeping this whole time.

It’s a bad look for someone gunning for the spot of Number One. Diego’s just lucky that Dad never found out about the cough syrup, or he’d have lost every ounce of credibility that he was barely managing to cling onto as is. He squirms at the thoughts of it, and Klaus swats at his shin to still him before remembering the wrapped wounds that lay just below. 

“H-How…” Diego winces at the sound of his voice, so nasally, throat and chest clogged with something that he is still unable to loosen.

“How d-d-do you-- you know?” He hates to ask, but Vanya frets over everything. Worries over each miniscule detail, and has only let it get worse since Five’s gotten stuck. 

“That she’s missing?”

Diego nods. 

“Well, she was going for a run to clear her head --- you know how she is: likes it when people stop her for autographs.” Diego nods again, though rolling his eyes doesn’t feel all that fair given the circumstances. Besides, the movement would hurt his head too much.

“And I guess she and Vanny were meant to hang out or something after, which is just… _mind-boggling._ I don’t know. The Luther thing, maybe? A topic of discussion for another day, me thinks. But I digress: Vanya went straight to Dad who acted like it was nothing -- the old bastard -- and I guess Pogo felt bad or something so he told Vanya he’d go check the street footage from the front of the house, and _guess_ what he saw.”

“Kl-Klaus!” Diego croaks, reaching to swipe at his brother. “C-Cut it out. You w-wwere crying about her not ten mi-minutes ago.”

“I know. _Jesus._ Don’t _yell_ at me or I’ll start crying again!” Klaus wields the nail brush threateningly, but his hands are shaking too much for it to mean anything. 

“As I was saying: Pogo went to check the footage even though we all thought Vanya was being dramatic and, well, Allison is real tough so they _had_ to have been bad.” Klaus pauses here to take a gulp of air. “Because they just… knocked her out cold. Right outside the Academy. None of us even noticed!”

And Diego can admit, despite his debilitating state, that there is a weight of shame to this. That they were simply on the other side of the front door as their sister was swept away into the unknown by criminals, no doubt. He tells himself that he should have been there, knowing how ridiculous it sounds. He tells himself that Luther should have been there, as attached at the hip as he and Allison usually are, and instantly feels a fraction better. 

“Who di-did?”

“Well, that’s just the thing: we have no idea. No one’s tried to contact Dad about it. And every _known_ enemy we have is locked up.” Klaus sighs, dejected, and screws the lid back onto the nail polish. 

“Have the ghosts bee--been talking?”

Klaus cuts him with a look that questions Diego’s current state of mind, one that has him feeling a little dumb for asking such a thing when, clearly, his brother’s pupils are blown wide and he hasn’t stopped shaking since the entering the infirmary to visit Diego. 

“I mean, yeah? They’re all here somewhere but it’s like there’s a buffer. So, I’m getting shapes or vague outlines which, honestly, is preferable to seeing ghosts with missing limbs or no stomach.” 

“But can-- can’t you ask them?”

“Don’t think they’re gonna know much, Twoots. Or at least, Dad doesn’t seem to think so. Reckons he has a better idea himself to get all this sorted in a nice and tidy fashion.”

_A better idea._ Of course, their father will never disclose that idea to Diego’s siblings, but he knows without needing to ask what exactly Dad has in mind. 

“Oh…” He worries his lip between his teeth and slides down further in the bed now that Klaus is finished with his painting. “Wi-w-will you tell me--me if you have to go get her? I w-want to help.”

Diego doesn’t need Klaus to tell him, because Diego will be the first to know where Allison is, but it’s still nice, as Ben says, to be kept in the loop. 

“Uh… no _offence,_ Diego.” Klaus’ chuckle sounds funny with his stuffed up his nose is. Probably from crying, Diego’s not sure. “But you look like a soft breeze would knock you clean off your feet. Maybe it’s best that you stay in bed, _mein bruder._ ”

“Asshole.”

“Cry baby.”

“Di-Dipshit.”

“Stinky.”

“I _just_ had a ba-bath.” Diego argues, despite the fact that it was full of ice and not bubbles. 

“Uh, yeah, like _two days_ ago. You’re all sweaty too.” Klaus rears back, dramatic as he is, and pinches his nose. What he says doesn’t sound right, because Diego’s conversation with Vanya can’t have been more than a few hours ago, so maybe Klaus is thinking of another time; that or it was simply the first bath he was conscious for. 

“You gonna give m-me a sponge b--bath?” Diego smirks despite his worry, for the missing time, for his missing sister, for what Dad will have him do to find her. 

Klaus swats at Diego, then once more for good measure. “I’d rather give Pogo a foot massage, thanks. But don’t worry, I’ve got just the thing.”

Before Diego dares to ask, Klaus delicately removes a small glass bottle, lilac in its tint, from his pocket. It’s Allison’s, obviously, for Vanya prefers life in neutrals; but Klaus shouldn’t have it, particularly given the circumstances.

“Fancy a spritz, Number Two?”

“Put that back, Four.” Diego says, sounding weak even to his own ears.

Klaus grabs his wrist and Diego does his best to ignore the feeling of the needle in his elbow jerking at the sudden movement. He dabs a drop of perfume (because it’s an antique bottle, really, and not the drugstore kind; gifted to Allison by their father on their thirteenth birthday) onto the inside of Diego’s forearm --- between the IV and his Umbrella tattoo --- and presses a kiss to the spot after for good measure. 

“There.” Klaus slumps back into the seat, grip still firm on Diego’s arm. “Now it smells like she’s here.”

A pause and then: “I miss her already.”

Diego nods, solemn, doing his very best not to dwell on the harsh truth of what he must do. Of who he must lose to find his sister.

“M--Me too.”

-:-

  
  


Diego relays the new information to Five as best he can through the butchered crackle of this new speaker. It’s a small thing, small enough to hold in one hand, powered by batteries like every other thing they’ve managed to communicate on, because there is no electricity in this burning place. 

There’s no sense to it really, because Five is so much older now --- maybe even an adult --- so any batteries that he’s gathered over the years must have deteriorated by now. It’s one of those things about this pow--- no, this affliction, that Diego struggles to comprehend. Sometimes, rules don’t apply in the _Void;_ sheer will fuels everything.

“You c-ca-can go back and stop all this from hap-happening right? All of it?”

There has to be some way out of this, out of choosing in the way that he knows his father means him to. Diego knew after Klaus told him of this alleged plan, that it was only a matter of time before Dad came bulling into the infirmary, demanding he locate Number Three. So, he needs this time with Five --- to fix this, to make it so that Diego can choose both of his siblings and not have to leave one behind.

“ _No._ ” Five snaps, before rubbing a filthy hand up and down his face. “Because then _this_ version of you wouldn’t exist to tell me all that went wrong in the first place, thus creating a paradox.”

Then, to himself, Five says, “The book can only tell me so much.”

“Wh-W-- _What_ book?”

Yes, in their as of yet short service to the public, the Umbrella Academy have managed to accumulate quite the number of fans, spurring on merchandise and memorabilia -- even word of their own comic book series --- but Five would never ( _never!_ ) reference these as a credible secondary source. 

“That doesn’t _matter_ right now, Diego. What matters is that _you_ find our sister and bring her home. I’ll make my own way.”

Five ducks his chin and turns away from the radio, as if it’s actually Diego standing before him and not a scrappy hunk of metal that shouldn’t even work in the first place with Number Two’s messy words spilling from the speakers.

“But I d-don’t w-w-want to leave you!”

It feels childish to say, especially when Five is stood before him in the _Void,_ looking twice the age he was when he ran out the Academy’s front doors and left them all behind. 

He feels weak, emotional, the way he longs for his brother to come back, because everything felt okay --- or at least they could all _pretend_ it was --- when they were a whole of seven. 

It’s compromising him, rendering Diego unable to focus on the truth of the matter which is that Allison is in the same version of the world as Diego and she needs help, far more than Five who has grown under his searing sun, who has his powers and his undeniable wit as a means of someday, maybe, finding a way home.

Diego cries, breathy little sobs into the collar of Luther’s borrowed shirt, the noise of it echoing in the infinity of the _Void,_ bleeding through the radio waves and into Five’s speaker. 

“Diego, listen to me!” 

It’s evident from Five’s posture that he aches to grab his brother and shake him, but they can’t touch in this place, and Five can’t even _see_ him. “I’m going to find a way back to all of you, I will. It might take a little longer than either of us would like, but I’m doing the maths and you-- ”

Five’s weathered hands grip the radio, holding on for dear life. Spittle flies from the corners of his mouth and his eyes are awash with worry. It’s easy to see now how much this place has taken from him; how far he’s had to fall.

“You’ve given me a tether. _Strings…_ that’s what you call them, right?” He doesn’t wait for Diego to respond --- Five has rarely required a soundboard that wasn’t Ben or Vanya.

“Well, to be literal, if you cut one of these strings, it can’t just disintegrate into nothing. Surely it would still be there, floating in the abyss-- ”

“The _Void._ ” Diego corrects him. 

Five’s eyes widen at this, though he doesn’t comment, because they never even got the chance to breach that topic in the conversation. “Right, the _Void._ So… maybe when the time is right, and I have all of this figured out down to the very last decimal, I can reach for the string and you can, well, _reel_ me back into shore.”

“I d-- I don’t think it w-w-works like that…”

“Oh, c’mon, Two.” Five smiles at the radio and it’s a jarring thing. His eyes have widened to the point of appearing manic and, not for the first time since finding his brother, Diego wonders what it was that happened to him in this place to change him so.

“You have this power for a _reason._ _You_ control _it,_ not the other way around.” Diego’s not so sure. 

“The old man always said we’d save the world some day, right? Maybe you have it in you to do that, maybe we can even do it all together. But I know, Diego, I _know_ that this power of yours -- the way you found me --- isn’t meant to be locked up in a tank in the basement.

“You’re _going_ to find our sister and, someday, you and I are going to find each other too. But now you have to go. You know what needs to be done.”

“O--Okay.” Diego says, rising to a stand next to his brother.

“And I want you to promise me one thing-- ”

“I promise.”

“No, _listen._ I need you to keep an eye on B--- ”

Suddenly, the static is cut and there is a hand on his shoulder, tight and bruising, yanking him away from Five. 

The confusion on his face turns to worry as Diego reaches desperately for any kind of hold on his brother.

And, for a second, their hands touch, right as he is ripped from the _Void._

-:-

When the time comes, Dad pushes him in.

-:-

The water swallows him whole. He is locked in the vice-like grip of the tank, squeezing and crowding him into the space that is so eager to trap him forever. 

The cold burns such a stark contrast to the heat of the world before, singes his nerve endings and locks what little air he had managed to gulp down into his chest. There is the white noise of the water around him before the tank is covered and the infinite blackness overwhelms. Before the lights go out and everything stops and Diego is confined to this place that feels so limitless but only ever smothers him. 

For the longest time, there is nothing. Nothing but Diego in the _Void_ and the reality of what he is about to do. The string he is about to cut for the sake of following another. 

Five is there, the final image of him, desperate and pleading, loving and longing, and then he is simply not. 

Now, Diego must think of Number Three. He reaches for things, between strings that tangle, like how she snipes at him each morning in the bathroom mirror while they brush their teeth, how he trips her up on the way to training and she trips him back, like it’s not a game and they truly want the other to fall. 

He thinks of her in summer, with her blazer shucked for the sake of comfort, knotting tiny flowers into Klaus’ hair and offering to make Vanya a crown. Listening to Luther go on and on about space, holding Ben’s hand when his tummy hurts and trying to rumour the pain away. Trying to rumour Diego’s stutter away, when he begged her once in the dead of night. Promising not to tell anyone after it didn’t work and he cried.

Besting Five in a game of che-- _no,_ he can’t think of their brother any longer. It is a dangerous temptation, one that could cost Allison’s life. Diego must choose. And Five is okay, Five is alive and growing and has a plan, but Allison has been taken and she might be hurt, so he must do what’s right. He must choose her. He _wants_ to choose her. 

So it’s a relief when she comes into view, though only for as long as it takes for him to truly _see_ her. 

_“I never considered myself a lucky man; never won a raffle, never made a dime on the ponies...”_

The voice is deep and distinctly not his sisters. It echoes, as though the words are being uttered inside a tin can, rumbling and distinct, though crackling slightly around the edges. 

_“But then the doctors told me I developed a rare disease… it affects one in two-point-five million people.”_

The source isn’t clear, not until Allison comes into sharp and blinding focus, bound to a chair and gagged. Her fingers pinch crescents into the leather arms of her seat, breaths coming in short huffs, hindered by the gag that splits the skin around her mouth. 

_“It eats you from the inside.”_

The man is huge. Hardly a man at all. Covered in khaki and capped by an archaic helmet, he leers over Allison, delicately pulling at strands of her curls with large and swollen fingers.

Diego can hear her pulse in his ears, feel how it rockets at the figure’s words and touch; feels it all the way down to his toes. He can see the red of her eyes and how the tears have long since past spilling, soaking the collar of her white shirt in a never ending stream. 

It’s difficult to think of anything but the marrow-deep fear that has painted his sister’s face pale. She’s crying, looking more scared than Diego has ever seen her, but he has to focus. He latches onto her string, keeps it close to his chest, and remembers the feeling of the channels and paths it took to arrive at this moment. 

She’s not in a place he knows, but one that he can easily find. Wasting no time and unwilling to lose any like he has in the last few days, Diego does his best to force himself from the _Void,_ taking large and heaving breaths through his blood-clogged nose.

_“How’s that for lucky?”_

-:-

“What’s _he_ doing here?” 

Luther budges up to make room for Diego in the car, but he doesn’t look happy to do so. He neglects to bite back, instead pressing a paper tissue to his face in attempts to slow the bleeding from his nostrils. 

Behind them, Klaus sits beside Ben where Five typically would. Where Diego would on Five’s other side and the pair of them would read over his shoulder.. 

Diego used to sit in the front with Allison and Luther, before he and Luther began fighting, so it feels strange to be here now. He’s in Allison’s seat, probably, which Luther takes offense to if how he looks Diego up and down says anything. 

It’s not like he wants to be here -- Dad could have taken the others to find Allison with the map Diego drew -- but he was forced to come along despite it all. 

Dad knows the way because Diego told him and it’s all relayed to the driver, Abhijat. His gut pulls as the car moves closer and closer towards their destination, towards Allison. Sure, he’s done this for missions before -- led the way --- but not with such a level of personal investment. 

There is a string already that exists between Two and Three, one he is familiar with and has known all his life -- would know anywhere in the world --- and it draws him in like a magnet, like there is nowhere else he can go but towards Allison. 

Five’s string has been cut loose, left unmoored and floating in nothingness. He is gone, forever maybe, but his absence has made each and every sensation and intuition stronger. 

Diego could take them directly to Allison with his eyes closed, on pure instinct alone. If he is to focus on anything, it is that, and not how the complete and utter absence of Five has left Diego rooted with a festering kind of pain he can’t ever imagine shaking.

They pull up to a warehouse and Luther all but flies from his seat. Klaus and Ben are slower, more jittery; the former because he has been wrecked by whatever he snuck while visiting Diego in the infirmary, and the latter likely because Diego is taking a little longer than normal to get out of the car himself; Ben has always been too compassionate for his own good. But this is good, Ben hanging back, because while his combat skills are up to par without the Horror, Diego is always going to be better. 

Outside is suspicious, as Luther quickly points out, being that there isn’t any kind of perimeter. The entire building has been left unguarded and completely exposed; though Dad doesn’t seem particularly surprised by the fact and is content to sit in the car and wait like always. 

“Four.” Luther begins, addressing their pathetic, little huddle. “Is there a ghost around that could give us a description of the inside? I’d rather not storm in there blind.”

Klaus’ eyes bounce around as if he’s looking for some kind of excuse, but Diego takes over before Number Four has to start working himself into a lie. 

“Three’s in there wi-with someone big and, and he’s pacing back and forth. They’re alone. But there’s tonnes of m-m-machines around.”

“Sorry, Two. But you aren’t exactly in control of all your… _faculties_ right now, so I can’t count on that. Particularly when Pogo’s footage showed Three taken by _two,_ average sized people.” 

Luther says this with such an air of superiority, of someone who knows best when Diego is, in fact the only one who knows anything at _all,_ that instead of dignifying him with a response, Diego simply flings a knife from the lining of his sleeve and curves it to land in the very tip of Luther’s Oxfords. 

_Faculties,_ his ass. 

“You almost hit my toe! What’s wrong wi-- ”

“Well, I d-didn’t! I’m not trying to sabotage this mi-m-mission, I want to help Al-Alli-- _Three_ too, so just _listen_ to me, okay?”

“Yeah, guys. I really think we should stop fighting and focus on finding Three.” Ben says, determined as ever, frustration evident as much as his nerves. “She might be hurt.”

“And, who knows?” Klaus says, arms raised and spread wide. “Maybe this fellow is a fan of hired goons. I imagine it’s a pay per hour kind of deal. The ghosts, they tell me that Diego _is…_ correct!”

“Use our numbers, Four! Or at least our nickna-- ”

“Well, I’m not calling him _Kraken,_ and Two honestly feels _derogatory_ at this point, so-- ”

_That’s my cue,_ Diego thinks, brushing past the pair of them and shrugging Ben off as he snags at his sleeve. 

The doors to the warehouse creek when he slides them open. It takes more effort than he’d ever admit, ribs aching and brow sweating already with his sudden return to normalcy. 

When his brothers follow, each of them immediately fall into formation, silenced in their squabbling by the severity of the situation. 

Chains hang from the ceiling, rusted, and squares of sun shine into the lightless space through frosted, corrugated panels, spaced evenly between steel ones. Water is dripping puddles onto the concrete floor, but aside from that and some stray scraps of metal, the space appears mostly empty. 

However, there is a door at the end, where two walls meet in a corner, and Diego knows Allison is behind it. 

He walks directly towards it without saying as much, without mentioning that their sister and her captor are in the room beyond. Not out of thoughtlessness, but because his words have lodged themselves in his throat, dry and constricted, unable to get out. 

Diego is _afraid_ of what he’s going to find, and the rising adrenaline isn’t helping.

There’s no way to be stealthy about this, to sneak into a room with only one door and no known windows and, logically, each of the boys know this. So, when Diego nods at the door, Luther kicks it down; and then the show begins. 

“-- Which I apologise for, but little girls just taste _better_ than doctors.”

Allison screams through her gag at the sight of them, and before the figure has a chance to turn away from her, Luther is propelling himself forward and into their back. 

He barely makes a dent. 

It’s a frightening move on Luther’s part because it goes entirely against their training, but it at least distracts the figure --- the man --- for long enough that Klaus can dip behind one of the surrounding machines and hopefully work his way over to free Allison of her binds. 

Luther falls with the sudden swing of a meaty palm, back colliding with the floor, and Diego doesn’t think twice before flinging two knives in quick succession at the man’s shoulders. He knives pierce each side, inhibiting any further hits he might direct towards Number One, and trigger a hissing noise as the air is released from the man’s hazmat suit. 

“At long last.” He begins, regarding both Luther and Diego with a beady glare from the slits of his helmet. “The World Famous Umbrella Academy. Allow me to introduce myself --- though I’m sure it’s an unnecessary gesture --- I’m Dr. Terminal.”

Ben gasps from where he stands at Diego’s side, though he’s quick to wrangle his expression into one of neutrality. 

“I take it you’ve heard of me?” Terminal teases, raising his foot to rest the weight of it on Luther’s chest. 

Diego can’t speak, not when Terminal stands between all of them and Allison. Blocking her. None of them can even check to see if she’s okay, and it’s likely that she’s not, for Terminal’s reputation precedes him. 

It precedes the Umbrella Academy’s debut, his notorious acts of violence and bloodshed acting as a warning to them against any unknown criminal they encounter. _The next one could be him._

Diego has never seen the man before, not in person or in the _Void,_ but he _has_ seen what Terminal tends to leave in his wake --- the kind of thing that stuck to Diego, crawled its way into his brain and soaked there, made him sick and had him crying for Mom.

Allison is lucky to be alive. 

“Here’s the thing…”

Terminal’s still going, and while this can be excellent for stalling and considering an actual plan, it’s awfully dramatic, and it is rare that anyone but Klaus appreciates it. 

“I can never _beat_ you.”

_Oh,_ that’s a new one.

“But that doesn't mean I’ll ever stop trying.”

The knives are still protruding from Terminal’s shoulders, but there’s no blood coming out, and even then here’s only a dribble when he yanks each blade from his flesh. 

Luther bucks under his foot and while Diego cannot see the fourth of their number, he can feel Klaus’ movements around the room and how he is slowly but surely nearing their sister. 

“Now, now.” Terminal chastises, full of mirth as his boot presses harder. “So, I suppose, in a way that means you’ll never beat _me._ Because when you’re all grown up and when you’re least expecting it, I’ll pay you a visit… in my own special way.”

“You’re going away for a _long_ time, Dr. Terminal.”

Luther all but growls at their assailant. The breath has been knocked from him and to move now would run the risk of Terminal’s boot pressing down to crush his chest. Ben shakes his head, though Diego can’t tell if it’s an absent movement that occurs out of fear or because he simply, like Diego, thinks what Luther said is dumb. 

“You know... “ Terminal carries on as though Luther never said a thing. “A reporter once visited me in prison…”

Diego’s heard of this from cops who think nothing of gossiping to the superpowered kid while he keeps control of the perimeter on a run of the mill mission. Dr. Terminal’s tangents are typically rather melodramatic --- with scenes that play out like a bloodied Baroque painting in their conception. 

“A disgusting fellow, asking questions.” Terminal says this with such an edge of contempt that Diego wonders if he has rehearsed this. 

“Just before I ate him, along with the bars that caged me, the guards, the _warden,_ and the carnations growing by the gate…”

Diego can vouch for that, for the aftermath of limp, segmented bodies; the bloodied remains. But it’s not fear that consumes him at the sight of this saga: Luther sprawled on the floor, Ben and Diego, poised and ready to strike, Klaus tucked under the chair that holds their sister captive. Each of them, dominated by their newest and most threatening enemy yet. 

If only it were so romantic. In truth, Luther is seconds from flinging Terminal across the room, Klaus’ hand has made a circle around Allison’s ankle in a poor attempt at reassurance, and Ben is sweating with the effort of restraining the beast that is pushing grotesquely from inside his stomach.

And Diego, well, even with his aching ribs, the flush of a fever still burning his cheeks, and his inability to open his mouth and utter even a single word, is completely exhausted. He has five siblings left, and he’d very much like it if they all made it home.

“He turned to me, sweating profusely, and asked-- ” It’s all flair and stalling. Luther pushes against his boot with the palms of his hands and Terminal wobbles slightly before continuing. 

“ _‘Do you think you can live forever?’_ ”

_No._ Diego wants to say. 

_You took our sister from us._

_Death is inevitable._

“And at the time, you know, I wasn’t so sure. But now I know. I can _feel_ them; the infinities inside you.”

He looks to Ben, of course he does, the boy with the gate to an entire dimension in his stomach. But then, inexplicably, his gaze fixes on Diego. 

“Number Five was the obvious favourite --- space and time are limitless...” A knife slips into the palm of Diego’s hand and he squeezes tightly to resist throwing it directly at Terminal. “But, dear boy, those monsters inside of _you,_ I imagine there is an entire dimension of them. Quite the feast.”

Ben whimpers and Diego moves to stand in front of his brother, knife raised. Ben’s fingers cling to the back of Diego’s blazer as if telling him _no,_ before flinching back from the heat that he is undoubtedly still radiating. 

_They_ are close. But Terminal appears hell bent on stalling some more.

“And _you._ ” He points a fat finger at him, and Diego would laugh at how quickly Luther’s head whips around to look at him if not for the fact that another move like that could crush One’s chest. 

“There is a decay in you, boy. A rot that is festering. It’s infinite.” Terminals leers, pressing harder against Luther’s chest and leaning forward to cast a shadow over Diego and Ben.

“And I would very much like to _taste_ it.”

_Bullshit._ Terminal doesn’t know anything, not a single thing. He can’t. But the notion of it is such a shock to Diego that instead of uttering any kind of retort, a witty comeback that Luther or Klaus might concoct and speak in mere seconds, he laughs. 

It sputters up his throat like a cough, a bark into the small space, almost directly into Terminal’s face. Diego reaches to cover his mouth, to school himself with some form of seriousness, because it’s not funny, it’s _terrifying._ His sister has been _kidnapped,_ for crying out loud, but it’s baffling really, that Terminal thinks there is anything in the _Void_ for him to consume. 

“Two…” Ben says, reproaching.

Klaus disagrees, as always, a giggle erupting from across the room, where he’s supposed to be helping Allison. Which, of course, draws Terminal’s attention away from the embarrassing result of his rehearsed words. 

Klaus blanches, ducking beneath the giant chair like his gangly limbs have any room to hide at all. 

Then Terminal is laughing along too, and the entire scenario becomes decidedly less amusing. 

“Your sister acted _perfectly_ as the bait to trap you all here, but I think I deserve a little something in return for all the trouble she’s caused me.”

“No!” Diego yells, a rare word that emerges without thinking. Luther joins him in a chorus, his voice cracking with an odd show of emotion.

Terminal turns towards Allison, where she is still stuck, shaking like a leaf, and everything happens quite suddenly after that. 

The thing in his chest that whirs and spins, made of metal and some unknown substance that radiates light, begins to make a nose, grating and creaky, like a rusted hinge working on overtime. Lights crackle all around them, spurting white lightning around the room that blinds them; that is directed towards Allison and begins spinning a circle around her upper arm. 

The light is all _white, white, white,_ until _red_ bleeds through and Diego knows that if he doesn’t act now, it will be too late.

But all at once, the viscera becomes entirely too overwhelming for Ben and the Horror takes the wheel, uniform ripping apart as _They_ breach the surface of his stomach, unable to wait for the zip to open. 

Diego, in fear of Dr. Terminal acting further on his hunger, tosses a knife from where he stands and curves it to land in the centre of his chest before grabbing Luther off the ground and dragging him out of any potential crossfire. 

His knife hits the bullseye and sparks fly. Terminal jolts as though he’s glitching and grabs fruitlessly at the metal to dislodge it from his chest. He must have known this would happen, that Number Two would land a clear shot. That he alone against five superpowered children would not stand a chance, not without backup that he had clearly dismissed upon their snatching of Number Three. 

But this is what Dr. Terminal wanted. Tentacles flying, powers being used in full view of him and his insatiable hunger. He wanted a taste of the Umbrella Academy. Wanted them to have a taste of him; to remember, to forever fear his return. 

The Horror grabs him, tentacles wrapping themselves around Terminal’s limbs and squeezing. He screams and Ben screams. Diego would very much like to, but instead ducks beneath his brother’s Lovecraftian final defense and begins working on Allison’s binds. 

She’s crying again, eyes rolling slightly in the back of her head as Klaus slaps her cheeks. Luther can’t wait, because it’s Allison, and rips the cuffs that bind her hands and legs right as Ben slams Terminal into the concrete wall. 

Delicate of her hair, Diego cuts the leather gag and tosses it to the side when it falls from her mouth. Ben makes a hole in the ceiling with Dr Terminal. 

Luther picks their sister up, while Klaus frets worse than Vanya, and Ben flings Terminal through the window, onto the blacktop outside. 

Ben slumps, Diego catches him. The Horror becomes shy rather quickly at his touch and retreats between the torn zip of Ben’s suit. 

Slinging Six’s arm around his shoulder, they follow the others out into the lot. Diego does a quick perimeter check, latches onto any movements that aren’t their own, and feels nothing but Dad and Abhijat in the car, and the fading retreat of a hulking figure running away. 

They are all safe, for now.

In the car, Dad does not breathe a word.

Luther’s got Allison cradled in his lap, Klaus latching onto her feet. Her curls are wet, clinging to her forehead with sweat, and her arm is bleeding all over the backseat upholstery. 

Ben looks sick with it and with worry, clutching his stomach next to Diego, no more Five between them. 

And Diego, he’s not breathing. Not allowing himself to. Not until he knows Allison is okay, for the delay was on him, his inability to prioritise the preservation of his family for the sake of clinging to a future Five who already seems to have set a plan into motion. 

They get her home with little fanfare. Their street is empty for the late hour and for their father neglecting to notify any authorities of the Rumor’s kidnapping. 

Luther brings her inside, protective, unwilling to let any of the others lay a hand on her as he carries their sister towards the infirmary. 

In the foyer, Klaus deflates onto the floor, back against the cool marble. Ben follows their Number One with Vanya in tow, eager to help in any way he can, though they all know what the Horror is doing to his insides at the spill of so much blood.

“Dr. Terminal really talks some shit, huh?” Klaus drawls, eyes to the atrium.

Diego walks towards Klaus, hand out and palm open, ready to help his brother up. Klaus smiles, a wavering thing, and squeezes his hand tight.

“Allie’s gonna kill us when she smells that perfume on you.”

Later, Mom will let four brothers and one sister crowd into the infirmary, when stitches make a circle around Allison’s upper arm and her smile is weak, but there nonetheless.

And only then will Diego breathe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw:  
> \- implied/referenced cannibalism  
> \- gore  
> \- starvation
> 
> i know this chapter is a lot more fragmented than usual, however diego has been falling in and out of consciousness (of the void) for days, so he's become something of an unreliable narrator.
> 
> I would also like you to know that the reason this took so long is because i got caught up writing a scene that won’t happen for another like ten years??? in diego’s life?? also this bad boy is smth like 11k words and i never, i promise you, EVER intended on writing a chapter this long, but i couldn’t throw another cliffhanger at you, it felt cruel. as did the did inclusion of dr. terminal, whose lines in this chapter were mostly his own from the comics. lmk if this is too long, i'm curious!
> 
> the next chapter will be fun, i think! stay safe and see you next time!


	14. if we're being honest.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crystal is cold between his fingers, delicate and light, as he picks up another of Klaus’ drinks. Together, they sip at the champagne, the fizz rising to pop tiny bubbles against their noses. Diego smiles against the rim, flute fogging with his breath as he begins to laugh. He’s not sure who started it, and it’s probable that Klaus’ laughter is the result of something other than the mere feeling of being relatively content, but it doesn’t matter. None of it does.
> 
> Then there is a third voice, sharp and pitchy, that joins their own. A hiccup and a content sigh, and Five is laughing too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i never meant for this chapter to be so long, but it's setting up for later chapters. some of which i have already written. the party they're attending is one allison references briefly in season one when telling claire a "bed-time story". 
> 
> i hope you enjoy! triggers are in the end notes.

They’ve saved people from burning apartment blocks, hospitals, government buildings, car crashes, attempted assassinations, and, even once, a zoo escape. But the museum robbery is the one that gets them a party. 

It was no big thing, not in the slightest. Luther led the charge, Ben multitasked, Allison commanded, and Klaus got distracted. 

In fact, the mission was only remarkable in that it was Diego’s first one back in the field in well over a month. A merciful thing, really, though he’d never admit to the long term symptoms that his last bout of illness came with. Primarily because his father claimed that it was a non-issue, a fantasy of his daydreams, something that Diego concocted in the most basic parts of his mind for any semblance of attention. When in reality, he could have done without the shame. 

It was nice this time around. Something to ease his way back into the high-octane nature of their usual missions. While his other powers are admittedly useful, Diego’s favourite is his physical trajectory manipulation (not the metaphysical kind, that exists in the place that has come to be the  _ least  _ favourite part of his power).

While it lacks the flair of Klaus’ productions --- dimly lit circles where Diego is forced to hold hands with One and Three, feelings of fingers all over them and incense clouding the air -- the allure of Allison’s, the strength of Luther’s and the shock of Ben’s, there is something rather satisfying about pinning a criminal to the wall by his underpants. 

Not to diminish it or anything, because people obviously cared a great deal about what was being stolen. Shockingly, more than they cared about other things the Umbrella Academy had accomplished, despite half the stuff in the museum not even being from America in the first place. 

In that way, it felt much like home. The vase that Diego saved in his pinning of the criminal’s underpants looked an awful lot like the Grecian amphora in his father’s study, and the jewels that got covered in the Horror’s black slime were from South Africa; like the taxidermied animals that line the colonnade in the drawing room.

None of the others appeared all that bothered by it, but there was something grating about the entire thing; about the speed with which their father ushered them to this particular mission, when only a week prior he hadn’t appeared all that concerned about the kidnapping of their own _ sister.  _

But Diego supposes that Dad can relate to the owners of the museum. Not only for the antiques and artefacts he possesses, but for the children he owns too. Bought from places that stretch across continents, not a  _ single  _ one of them born in the country that they now live in. Trapped in a dusty, old building that they’re supposed to call home, paraded around for the public like an exhibit when their father sees fit. 

Except the owners of the museum did not hesitate in making a private call to Sir Reginald Hargreeves once their alarms were tripped. Dad didn’t even alert the authorities when looking for Allison. Worse than that, he refuses to look for Five. Refuses to let Diego search anymore, though he knows it’s futile. 

He does his best not to think about it for the knot of anxiety that it forms. He has to trust that Five knows exactly what he’s doing, he has to carry on as normal; though normal can often be challenging, especially when he’s not quite sure what exactly it entails.

Diego finishes slotting several knives into the lining of his jacket as his siblings shout across the hall to one another. Training had been brief today, ran only until noon before they gathered for lunch and then retired to their rooms to prepare for the evening. It’s not a  _ normal  _ day, by any means.

Of course,  _ prepare  _ could mean a multitude of different things. Many of these preparations are commonplace, such as Luther’s push-ups and Ben’s tendency to halfheartedly ready himself in order to go back to whatever book it is that he’s reading. 

Klaus and Allison’s are another story entirely. 

Klaus, who had hogged the bathroom between the hours of one and three, soaking in bubbles and aromatic bath salts. The mirrors are fogged when he emerges, which almost drives Allison to murder. Thankfully, she had spent the better part of the afternoon with Mom, who took the time to flat iron and then curl Allison’s hair into a style she had circled in a magazine.

However, the amount of steam Klaus had created during his time in the bathroom is still liable to cause some damage. Allison’s screams from a few doors down are proof enough of this.

“ _ Mom, _ my hair!” 

“Has anyone seen my cummerbund?”

“Your  _ what? _ ”

“You look really lovely, Ben.”

“Oh, thanks, Vanya.” Ben doesn’t sound like he believes her. “Hey, Diego?”

Ben’s standing in his doorway; Diego thought he had closed it. Behind him, Vanya is peering into his room, still in her uniform, ordinary hair, ordinary face. 

“Mom combed my hair earlier but she’s busy with Allison again. Could you help me fix it?”

Diego doesn’t have to worry about his hair because it’s still short as ever. It’s become part of Mom’s duties -- a weekly thing, she will sit him in their floor’s bathroom and use the clippers to trim his hair as short as she can manage without rendering him entirely bald. 

Ben’s hair has been combed flat to his head, with a parting slightly off center and to the right. But there are stray strands that stand on end, a vicious case of bedhead that Ben has always fallen victim to. 

Diego nods, motioning for Ben to step closer. Vanya lingers in the doorway now, watching them, and Diego wants to snap at her, tell her to just come in and take a seat, but he wouldn’t like to embarrass her either; especially when she’s been so nice to him lately. He leaves her be and stands flush to his brother, eyeing up his enviable head of hair to fully assess the problem. 

His scarred palms press the stray licks flat to Ben’s scalp, but they fly up again, defying gravity and making for a messy sight. Their father won’t like this -- not Ben’s messy hair or Klaus’ mascara or the dirt under Diego’s fingernails. Diego can fix one of these things, he just needs a little time and a tad more product. 

He roots around in his top drawer, pushing his socks and underwear aside to reveal a pot of hair gel, old and unused, likely stolen from Five or Luther when Diego actually had a use for it. He unscrews the lid and scoops a dollop of it onto his fingers before using it to flatten the unruly flicks of his brother’s raven hair. 

“That feels like too much…” Ben says, shoulders rising up under his ears in a cringe.

“Trust the process, bro.”

Diego’s not the best at this. Primarily because he’s out of practise. Before, when he was too young to do it himself, Mom took care of his hair in the mornings, just like she did with each of his six siblings. Diego and Klaus struggled most out of the boys, Ben too, depending on how well he slept the night before. But it was of little concern, because Mom always handled it. 

Now, Diego has no reason to style his hair. What’s left of it just sits there, atop his head. Oddly shaped, according to Luther. Perfectly round, according to Klaus. Regardless, he is embarrassed. 

Ben doesn’t know this, so Diego elects to act the picture of cool for the sake of numbers Six and Seven; righting the double-crown split of his brother’s hair and ensuring the strands at the front are spiked in a relatively consistent manner.

“Finished.” Diego says, spinning Ben towards the mirror. 

“ _ Oh… _ it worked.” He rolls his eyes at Ben’s shock, Vanya smothers a giggle. “Thanks so much, Two.” A pause, regard for the company he’s in before continuing quietly. 

“I’m a little nervous, honestly.”

Ben always says this to Diego and will say the exact opposite to Luther or Allison. He doesn’t even really say it to Klaus, and maybe it’s because none of them get all that nervous about things like this. Diego fluctuates in and out of that category, and Ben has been rather good at reading him as of late.

“M-Me too.” Diego admits, eyes leaving Ben’s in the mirror. 

“What have you got to be nervous about?” Vanya asks, seemingly the pair of them, though she is looking directly at Diego. Unsure of what to make of this, he shrugs.

There is something to her tone that reminds him of Mom; a coaxing thing, gentle and hesitant, but not in her typical shy ways. He ignores the part of him that wishes to bristle at how she’s speaking and decides to meet her half way. Vanya tried with him, so he must try in return. 

“Well, d-do I, uh… do I look okay?” 

Both siblings look at him funny for a moment and Diego can’t help the flush that heats his face. He shouldn’t have asked, only Ben and Vanya are probably the least likely to make fun of him for not being in possession of that Top Three bravado. 

He’s seen better days, before, when he’d just started to fill out like Luther and shoot up like Klaus. When he had the energy to run around with his siblings and vault himself over banisters on missions. When the skin under his eyes wasn’t blackened by exhaustion and instead inked only with a faded blue. 

His hair isn’t nice to look at, he knows that. A tad patchy from the flicks of white that cut through his scalp; small scratches, scars that have healed well over time, from nothing in particular, from living in this house. It’s too short for him, has no hope of covering up the stitches in his brow, and as he continues to grow into his face, Diego feels as if his cheeks have gotten puffier, his ears bigger. Klaus has big ears, but his curly hair covers the fact. Even Ben has begun to lose his puppy fat. 

He turns abruptly from Six and Seven and begins to fuss with his dresser drawer as though he hasn’t already got plenty of knives on his person. 

“You look handsome.” Ben says, eventually, careful but genuine. Diego can feel Vanya nodding along in his periphery. 

“At least you don’t have to worry about your hair getting messed up.”

Something inside him sinks tremendously at his sister’s remark. His hackles do not rise and instead, Diego rather suddenly finds himself wishing to do nothing more than crawl into bed and shuck his responsibilities to the Academy, to his father. 

But he has to be smart about this, for how long he spent out of commission in the last few weeks. He rubs his palm across the top of his head, ensuring there are no lumps that Mom might have missed earlier, and pats his pockets for his knives. 

“W-We’re gonna be late.”

“Diego, I didn’t mean-- ”

He pushes Ben towards the door, throwing a wave back to his sister. 

“Later, Vanya.” 

-:-

Dad pinches Diego’s fingers together as he holds them, inspecting. 

He and his siblings are lined up in the foyer, in as best order as they can manage with Five gone and Vanya unwelcome. Mom had told each of them on the way down the stairs that they look lovely; now it’s Dad’s turn to pick them apart. 

“How disappointing.” Dad squeezes his fingers hard enough to bruise and Diego holds onto the feeling. Relishes in it, resents, keeps it close to his chest. 

“So little I demand of you; even Number Four can maintain his appearance when the occasion calls for it.” Klaus gives their father a wave that goes unnoticed and smiles into the perfectly starched collar of his shirt. 

Diego would like to point out that Klaus’ hands are clean, that his hair is acceptably long and combed to the side, that his eyes are bright and wide, because he has found a rather cunning way to  _ cope. _ That these matters come easy to him because his special training is typically only enacted as punishment, not as a regular discipline that requires practise. That the free time Klaus has managed to obtain through his siblings’  _ increased  _ training has given him ample opportunity to explore other  _ avenues  _ of entertainment. 

Of course, that is not to be spoken of. Nor is the fact that their father has lost what little faith he ever possessed in Klaus’ ability to train like the rest of them. 

It’s not that Diego resents him for it -- far from it, he recognises that his brother’s particular brand of suffering is somewhat unimaginable, a permanent and perpetual affliction -- he is glad for Klaus, for his reprieve. 

He understands the need for it. The desperate feeling that claws at him to do the same, but the equally frantic opposition within him that  _ begs  _ to be Number One. The best. A reward, a right that cannot be earned through consumption of banned substances. 

But there are parts of Diego, like the outside ones: the bare scalp, small, purple punctures in the crease of his elbows, nails wrecked, chipped and raw to his father’s ultimate dismay because of the things that he must see behind the lids of his eyes. These parts, they beg for that reprieve too. 

The things on the inside, well, he doesn’t much like to think about them or what  _ they  _ want. 

Truthfully, he is jealous of Klaus, just as he is jealous of all his siblings. 

And, oh, how his father had  _ praised  _ Luther for doing the absolute bare minimum. For filling a suit that was tailored to him right before Five disappeared. That still fits him perfectly, bar a few adjustments from Mom.

Even Ben, who typically looks shrunken and uncomfortable in any garment at all, paints the picture of a gentleman. Though he cannot fault Ben for coming into himself. For, finally, looking like this event is actually something he might wish to attend, despite the nerves that are no doubt wrangling in his gut. 

Allison, whose outfit was made by Mom from some rare material Dad had gotten shipped all the way from Milan, was given suitable recognition. Her dress, a modest thing, golden flecks reflecting off the marble floors, hemmed to perfection, sleeves shaped like soft, glittering bells draped over her shoulders; but not long enough to cover the slowly healing scar on her upper arm. For this, Vanya had given her a slightly less elegant looking shawl, purple, with its own glittering quality. Dad had rather quickly turned his nose up at this, but neglected to comment. 

It feels rather unfair; that Dad is still gripping his fingers, and not in any way that Diego might have hoped. Diego, who no longer fills his suit for how many meals he’s missed in the last few weeks. Whose collar is gaping slightly and exposing his throat far more than a gentleman, or a trained combatant, ought to.

Mom had told him while she was taking his trousers in at the waist that this would quickly right itself. That, while extra portions were rarely permitted for anyone but Luther, whose power was the only one now to require fueling (what with Five gone), that she would do her best to ensure Diego would be back to himself in no time. 

While he tends to believe his mother on most matters, he’s not quite buying it this time around. 

“I suppose you will suffice.” His father says, dropping Diego’s hands from his own as though he is contagious. 

“Do ensure that you remain with one of your siblings at all times, lest some unfortunate individual find themselves waiting until the inevitable approach of Armageddon for you to complete a sentence.” 

Diego nods, not trusting himself enough to prove his father wrong. Though, it’s of little matter. His father’s apparent disdain of him has increased tenfold since Diego claimed to have found Number Five in the  _ Void. _ It’s not surprising, though it can hurt nonetheless. Still, he must remind himself: Father’s run-on sentences can be quite tedious too.

“I’m sure Number Four will be able to talk enough for the both of you.”

Klaus beams, taking this as a compliment. They all know that it’s not. He’s blinded by a cloud, an artificial fog in his mind created entirely by his own will. 

Upstairs, stood next to Pogo and gripping the railing in a jealousy that she has not yet learned to conceal as well as Diego, Vanya stands; without glitter, without flair, in her regular uniform.

Below, Allison smiles. It is fake, but beautifully painted nonetheless. A tragic mimicry. 

Five is not here. This is their first official public event without him. 

Each of them is aware of the truth in these things, but none of them will talk about it.

The car is waiting.

-:-

The house is sprawling. Not in the manner that the Umbrella Academy sprawls, swallowing entire city blocks -- apartments, butcher shops, and Turkish baths to boot -- but the way that the landscapes in Mom’s paintings do. 

For a moment, as Hermes rolls up the avenue and tall, elegant lights stream through the car window, Diego feels as if he has entered another country. Italy, perhaps. Palladian in style, as Mom would say, all symmetrical with a clear effort at austerity. 

But there is a warmth to it, with how the yellow lights make shadows of his siblings on the cobble drive as they exit the car. It’s on the wind too, a balmy breeze unlike that of which they would ever encounter in the city, ruffling the sleeves of Allison’s dress and dusting across the curls atop Klaus’ head. 

Any measure of time spent in the countryside by the Hargreeves siblings typically involved towering trees and mountainous terrain. Survival training with limited resources, rationing, a test of their orienteering abilities, their collective will to last the night. Back when Five was still around, he was the best. He’d once made his home at the top of a tree, while the rest of them floundered for an empty cave or a cluster of rocks they might take shelter in. 

Five would likely do the same now, Diego thinks. He smiles at the thought of his brother spatial jumping to hide between the carefully groomed trees down the hill as the paparazzi converge, which is lucky, because at least he won’t look so dull in his pictures. Mom always says that Diego has perfectly straight teeth, so he capitalises on that, notions of Five amongst the pines momentarily forgotten, beaming as best he can. 

Klaus is loving it, waving at their regular press as the siblings make their way towards the grand front doors. The regularly donned domino mask does nothing to dissuade his sense of distinction, if anything, it adds to Klaus’ overall look (though rendering his mascara redundant), where it detracts from the elegance of Allison’s. 

“Hey, Luis! Has your wife had the baby yet?” A twirl, though he’s not quick enough to go unnoticed by their father. “Did you get that, Lynn? Oh, why _ thank you. _ ” 

“Number Four.” Their father quietly berates him, subtly jerking Klaus back in line, in his correct order. The photographers keep taking their pictures as the Hargreeves walk up the small set of steps, in between the columns. 

People are milling around, of course, but this is a party for  _ them, _ so little attention has been placed on anyone else. Diego wasn’t expecting this, so he tries his very best to at least look better than he currently feels. He wasn’t expecting anything at all; he doesn’t even know who owns the house.

Allison is next to him, as always, and behind him in the line. Briefly, he feels her hand grip the tails of his jacket and he worries that she might have tripped on her train, but it’s such a slight slip that not a single person has commented, not even Dad. So, she beams and gives the photographers a final wave -- a classic shot, no doubt fit to grace the pages of many a magazine that has increasingly been featuring  _ only  _ their sister -- before they head inside. 

“Two, _ focus. _ ” Luther whispers this urgently, as though this party holds the same severity and consequence as a deadly mission. Diego snorts in response, but does as his brother says. 

“Children.” Their father addresses them in the hallway, before a set of grand glass doors that open into the party, golden and gleaming, alight with something none of them have ever before encountered in person. 

“It is imperative that you are on your absolute best behaviour. You are not here as individuals, but as a collective representation of the Umbrella Academy.”

_ Some collective, _ Diego thinks. Five’s absence is a gaping hole down the middle of their group. Dad hasn’t spoken a word about him since hanging the portrait above the mantelpiece in the drawing room. They don’t know how to act. They were not _ told. _

“The presentation is at nine o’clock sharp. Any tardiness will be appropriately punished.” His gaze flits across each of them before landing on Luther, who he addresses with little more than a nod before leading Diego and his siblings into the midst of the party.

There are introductions, names that Diego doesn’t care to remember but faces that burn into the backs of his eyes. He can’t help it. It’s a sort of over-exposure, like when Dad makes him sit in front of all the screens and absorb everything into the  _ Void’s  _ infinite space. Except these people don’t feel like they matter. 

He’s pleasant enough, smiles like Luther does and shakes all the hands that grab for him. It’s all adults, there are no kids like them. And maybe it was foolish of them to think that there would be -- for Diego knows that his siblings had a similar, yet unspoken, hope -- but it’s no less disappointing to realise that they are expected to serve as entertainment for grown-ups all night. 

That being said, perhaps he is the only one who minds much. Luther looks delighted with himself, knee deep in a conversation with the Assistant District Attorney and her husband. 

“-- it’s our honour to serve our city, ma’am. We owe it to the people-- ”

Meanwhile, Allison’s attention has been captured by an attractive couple that Diego doesn’t recognise.

“And The Boy, has he been found?”

“ _ I heard a rumour  _ that you both asked me about my dress.” 

Diego wishes he could use that one. 

Klaus has vanished, nowhere to be seen, and part of Diego wants desperately to cling to Ben. It would be easy to use his brother as a buffer, because everyone knows that Number Six doesn’t enjoy the constant attention. But that would be selfish. Diego is the one who’s scared, Ben is the one who’s gazing longingly across the grand ballroom, eyes glued to one of the museum’s patrons, who they have never met but Diego has seen on the dust covers of Ben’s art history books. 

“You should-- should go talk to him.”

Ben perks up, face flushed at having been caught. 

“You think so?”

“Uh huh.” Diego smiles and Ben smiles back. “If anything, you should d-do it for M-M-Mom. He wr-wrr-wrote about that painting she likes, yeah? W-With the boat crashing and the w-w-waves.”

“Yeah, he did. I mean… I want to, but… are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

It would be nice if Diego could deny all of this, act indignant at such a question, and wave his brother off with the air of a boy who is calm and collected. But this is Ben. Ben who knows and sees and doesn’t need the  _ Void _ like him. Ben who draws and paints pictures of exactly the world Diego wants to live in, who listens to everything he says, who waits for him to _ finish.  _ Who carries such a keen sensitivity within him without even needing to draw upon the Horror’s intuition to do so.

“I think so, yeah. Yeah.” 

His answer doesn’t inspire confidence, but it’s okay; because Ben doesn’t need a  _ promise,  _ he just needs to know that Diego will come and find him before anything can get too bad. The last thing he wants is to scare his siblings again. It’s something he’s gotten into the habit of doing, between near drownings and fevered states, but they are currently too far inland for there to be any large bodies of water and Mom said that his temperature is now down to a nice and steady ninety-four. 

And Five is  _ gone.  _ Five is in that place and stuck for the time being, but he told Diego that he had a plan, so he must stop thinking about it. Must focus on the present and being okay enough that Ben can trust him to be alone for an hour or so. 

Diego smiles at his brother, shoves him off towards the patron and assures him with a swift, “‘M probably going to go and find Kl-K-- Four anyway. Have fun.”

Ben springs on him then, quick and behind the shadow of a column, out of their father’s possible sight. 

“Thanks, Two.” He says into Diego’s collar, fingers curling to fist the fabric of his jacket. “See you later.”

Ben makes quick work of crossing the ballroom and when Diego looks around, he sees that Allison and Luther have moved on too. He’s alone, dwarfed by the columns that rise into an arch above his head. In his suit that doesn’t fit right, in this place he doesn’t know, with these people who are looking at him in a way that feels invasive. 

He moves further into the party, slipping between the guests, which is harder than it should be given his height. 

_ Subtle, _ Five would tease him. _ You’ve got all the grace of an elephant.  _

Diego rolls his eyes, though the action is hidden behind his mask. 

“Says the guy w-w-with two left feet.” 

An elderly man looks his way at this, a concerned frown scrunching his face up before it softens with recognition. Diego brushes past him before a conversation can start. 

Dad said not to talk to anyone alone, so he’s only doing what he was told.

He only has to sneak by a few more party goers before he reaches a set of grand double doors that open out onto a colonnade, followed by a patio surrounded by contemporary sculptures and oddly shaped shrubbery. Beyond, there is an outdoor pool, which Diego elects to ignore, and floodlights that spill a rectangle of white light out into the middle of the dark. There, he can see figures moving, bouncing around what appears to be a court. 

Their strings are rapid fire, somewhat unpredictable at this range. A ball is being passed between them, and Diego can track it with his eyes closed, but what strikes him most is the noise. 

They’re  _ laughing.  _ Shouting and talking amongst themselves,  _ teasing. _ As he moves closer, taking the stone steps one at a time, he can see that most, if not all of them are quite tall. 

A total of six men, some with their jackets discarded on the evening dew of the grass. When they shove at each other, it’s always followed by a laugh. A tackle and a swipe of the ball, stumbling after one another, despite being adults, probably twice Diego’s age. 

He feels rather odd, standing here and watching them. A child, really -- a child dressed as a grown up. A few feet away and barely lit by the faint, orange glow from the grand house, Diego observes. He breathes, even inhales and exhales that balance each other out slowly as he settles into the situation. 

The party is an awful lot for him, really. So many strings, interwoven and further tangling without any semblance of mercy towards how he cannot help but follow them. Times like these are when the  _ Void  _ feels desirable, a sweet escape into a place where there is nothing unless he wills for there to  _ be  _ something. 

But even if he were to seek his siblings out, follow Allison’s string across the ornamental garden or Klaus’ into the bathroom, it would be too much. Despite feeling better, back in peak fighting condition, ready to face the world and save people alongside his siblings, there is an awful feeling of hurt to it; a sense of failure that overwhelms. Diego can find almost anyone, but he can no longer find the one person that matters. 

_ Didn’t take you as one for self-pity, T-- _

“Hey, kid.” He’s startled from the feeling he was about to inflict upon himself, thankful for the shadows that the lights have cast for how his face burns at being noticed; thankful that he was torn from his own train of thought in the knick of time. 

“Yeah?”

The man who’s speaking jogs over in his dress shoes. Sweat is beading on his brow and a smile is splitting his face in two. He is no threat, but Diego's heart rate climbs regardless.

“You gonna sit there watching or are you gonna play?”

He tosses the ball to Diego, who catches it without consideration. It’s much lighter than he thought it would be -- than the ones Dad pelts at them during training. It’s not as though he knows what he’s meant to do with it -- watching television of any kind, let alone sports, was expressly forbidden once he and his siblings had even realised that such a thing existed. 

“What’s your name, kid?”

“My name is Two.” He responds in a hurry, just how he and Mom practised. 

“No, like, your  _ real  _ name.” Another of the men says, slowly, like Diego might not understand.

He understands perfectly, it’s just that Two _ is  _ his real name. Diego is the name Mom gave him when he turned ten. It feels like the most important name, but it’s not the one on any of his legal documents, nor is it the one that anyone but Mom, Pogo, and his siblings refer to him as. 

At Diego’s silence, the first man speaks. “Like, yeah, the number on my jersey is twelve, but my name that my  _ Mom  _ gave me is Jerome. My birth name.”

Diego doesn’t bother them with the specifics, deciding to respond with the simplest of answers. 

“M-Mom calls me D-D-Diego.”

“They’ve got a Mo-- ” One of them begins before being smacked into silence by Jerome.

“Nice to meet you, Diego.” He says, with a dip of his head. “You know how to play?”

Diego doesn’t, but far be it from him to admit such a thing, particularly to someone older, taller, someone who  _ looks  _ like  _ him.  _ So struck is he by this fact and how it inexplicably warms him, that Diego does the first thing he can think of -- the thing that he saw the others do as he was making his way down the steps -- and flings the ball towards the hoop. 

He knows that he won’t miss, but he doesn’t consider it much of an impressive feat until the players erupt into applause, whooping as he curves the ball mid air and it slides smoothly into the hoop. 

“Dibs on Diego!”

“No fucking  _ way, _ man. Four against three with Diego on your team? We wouldn’t stand a chance. Kid can play with me and Carlos.” 

Though this isn’t an obvious question, Jerome looks to Diego as though he’s asking for permission. Diego nods in response, grateful to have the decision made for him. 

He doesn’t realise at the time -- not until whispers travel through the party later -- who these men are. He doesn’t know that they, like each of the socialites and philanthropists at this party, are household names that hold Diego and his siblings in such high regard when they are merely children. 

Dad would beg to differ, as to him, they are not children, but extraordinary beings. They carry a sole purpose that is far larger than the sum of their parts. But these guys, they know him as Diego. He even takes his domino mask off, despite direct orders, because they insist that there’s no need for him to wear it. 

They know his name and they know his face and they’re fighting over who gets to have him on their team. He’s smiling so wide that it hurts his cheeks, pulls at the stitching on his left brow. 

“Do-- d’you think I c-could play bas-b-basketball like you guys?” He dares to ask, bouncing the ball as instructed when it’s passed his way again. Jerome laughs, palm falling to the top of Diego’s head, moving it back and forth in an unfamiliar but fond way. 

“Grow about a foot taller, kid, and then we’ll talk.”

They play for what feels like an entire night, but in reality is around an hour. Diego is exhausted by it, unaccustomed to running up and down the court due to his absence from drills the last few weeks. 

His chest aches, but he doesn’t heave in any great breaths, unwilling to show weakness in front of his new acquaintances. And, for once, he is grateful for his lack of hair for how the sweat doesn’t mess it up. Jerome and the others, some of them have hair like him too. And it looks good. Maybe it’s more practical, more aerodynamic for their profession. 

So, Diego plays. And he’s quite good at it. The two members of his team -- Jerome and Carlos --- set him up for a shot every time and not once does he miss. It’s just as he’s lining up for another that he feels it, the tug of a familiar string nearby, one he’s been paying particularly close attention to as of late.

Across the garden -- beyond the fountain and the sculptures that surround it -- Allison’s shoulders are shrugged, filed and polished fingertips fiddling with her sparkly shawl as it continues to slip off her shoulder. A group of ladies are talking to her, some young and pretty and put together like Mom, others old and wrinkled, with smudged lipstick and dead animals strewn across their hunched shoulders. 

Allison’s good at talking so, of course, they adore her. She’s the most charismatic of the Hargreeves, though Klaus likes to believe that he is superior, and Luther claims that their father is the centre of attention at every event he attends. It’s always been her, powers aside. 

And typically Diego would envy his sister for it and wish that he too could possess that level of charm, the ease with which she approaches every situation, where he is sharp at the edges and liable to snap. But at this very moment, Allison looks as brittle as Diego often feels. Though he can’t see her eyes for how the domino mask covers them, he knows they are darting. There is a slight jerk to her movements, a nervous hitch every time the shawl slips to reveal her scarred shoulder. 

The ladies with her, they would ask questions if they saw. And what’s Allison meant to say, how is she meant to express the truth behind such a recent injury when she has been forbidden to speak about it? When it keeps her up at night, wandering towards the attic to smoke cigarettes out the window. 

Diego holds a hand up to Jerome, signalling that he’ll be back in a moment before jogging across the court towards his sister. The group of women part then, staring at him in his approach, and Allison only has a second to turn around before Diego is slipping his suit jacket off his shoulders and handing it to her. 

“Could you take this for m-me? I’m over--over-overheating.”

For a moment, Allison looks ready to protest, to tell him to run along to the coat check and drop it there because she’s not willing to just carry his things around for him. But his sister sees right through him on most days and uses her one free hand to lift her perfectly styled hair up off her neck. Diego moves to drape the jacket across her shoulders.

“I suppose I could take it for a while.”

The women watch, clearly fascinated by such a casual interaction between the siblings of the Umbrella Academy. Allison ignores them, or attempts to appear as though she is, and straightens her shoulders.

“Why is this so heavy?”

“Knives.” Is all Diego responds with, and the women burst into a round of cacophonous laughter. Like he’s joking, like he doesn’t have a number of knives well into the double digits on his person at all times. 

“Right, well, you’re welcome.” Allison sniffs, turning back to the women and taking a sip from her flute.

“See ya, Three.”

-:-

“Where were you?”

Luther’s fussing with his bowtie in one of the ornate gilded mirrors that line the hallway. There are floral arrangements blocking each one, so Diego can hardly see himself above the hydrangeas, but his brother seems to be managing just fine.

“W-With the Knicks.”

“The  _ what? _ ”

“The Knicks…” Ben says this very slowly. He is on Luther’s other side, facing exactly the same predicament as Diego. But he looks fine and very well-presented. Unlike Diego, who’s spent the last hour running up and down a court. “They’re a basketball team, keep up.”

“Oh.” Klaus sidles over to them, plate loaded with hors d'oeuvres. “Did you audition for the team, Twoots?”

Ben snorts, taking a tiny piece of food for himself. “It’s called a try-out, Four. You audition for movies or plays.”

“Well, I know that.” Klaus says, mouth stuffed with crackers. “Someone’s talking to Allie about it right now.”

“Talking to Allison about what?” Luther whips around from where he was eyeing himself up in the mirror. Diego hides a laugh behind his hand. 

“About movies and plays,  _ duh. _ ” Crumbs fall from Klaus’ mouth. Ben passes him a napkin. “I’m a tad offended that no one has offered me anything, but there  _ is  _ something thrilling about having a  _ starlet  _ for a sister. Because, no offense, but I’m top pick for her red carpet dates if we’re being real.”

If he closes his eyes he can imagine Five lined up beside them, fussing with his lapels in the mirror while simultaneously trying to act like he doesn't care. Rolling his eyes at Klaus even though none of them can see it, and offering to fix Ben’s collar where it has flipped up at the back. Diego does it for him, lest their father see and reprimand Ben for looking shoddy. 

“Oh, thanks, Two.” Ben offers meekly, as if he’d been afraid to ask for help. 

“Maybe the Knicks will have me.” Klaus says, plates discarded on the marbled sideboard as he preens in the mirror. 

Diego gives him a light shove, causing Klaus to stumble over his own gangly legs. 

“You d-d-don’t even know how to play bas-basketball.”

“I don’t  _ need  _ to know. Please. Do you think I know anything about the French Revolution?” He should, they all learned about it in their history class. “No, I just summon dear Marie and she tells me everything I need. Well, not everything. I think she lost some of her marbles when they,  _ you know… _ ”

Klaus’ index finger draws a clean line across his throat and from Luther’s other side, Ben groans. Klaus carries on, unperturbed. 

“Name a famous basketball player, go!”

Luther weighs in, likely to distract Ben from any potential aches that particular line of thought might have triggered. 

“How about I just toss Six up into the air and he can score a…  _ hoop? _ ” Ben nods at him. “Yeah, hoop. Dream team!”

“B-Beh- B would just use his tentacles. They always liked that leather ball w-we found in the attic.”

Klaus isn’t listening, caught up in his own sport filled fantasy.

“-- I conjure thee!”

Klaus doesn’t use his oft requested inside voice when saying this, but none of them call him out on it. Nor do they call him out on the fact that he is in no state to be conjuring anyone, let alone physically manifesting a dead basketball player for long enough to win a game. 

Because nobody wants to talk about it. There is no good reason to. Their hands are tied, their father feigns ignorance, indifference. Klaus never _ listens.  _

And that’s fine. It’s always been fine. Why should now be any different?

-:-

“Fancy a spritz, Two?"

It’s late into the night, but the party has not ceased. Their father is still nowhere to be found and while this is an exciting development for a group of children who have never known life unobserved, Diego doesn’t trust it. Dad has his ways and, all else failing, he has Diego. 

"I'm not w-w-wearing Alli- Allis-s--  _ Three’s  _ perfume here, are you k-kidding me?"

"Oh, _ no. _ ” Klaus chuckles, a musical thing carried off into the din of the party. “I meant  _ champagne.  _ People keep giving me  _ champagne. _ "

It’s no surprise. This variety of familiarity is one that Diego and his siblings are entirely unfamiliar with. He’s spent most of the night, basketball aside, fending off the touches of strangers. In the bathroom he’d been offered a cigarette by a middle-aged man who kept trying to make casual conversation, despite the fact that they were at the urinal. And while he had not been offered any champagne, he has no doubt that Klaus is actually telling the truth on this particular front, given that he’d already seen Allison with a glass of her own.

“Is it nice?” He asks, eyeing up Klaus’ impressive stash that he’s managed to conceal behind a large vase. 

“What was it that French monk told me?” Klaus asks, though Diego imagines it’s rhetorical. “Oh, yes!  _ Come quick, I am tasting the stars! _ ” 

Klaus’ accent isn’t entirely abysmal, and his words, however stolen they are, paint a desirable picture to Diego. His curiosity piqued, he tells himself that one sip will do no harm. 

_ You’re both idiots, _ Five says, and Diego thinks that’s a little unfair. 

Five, out of all seven siblings, would likely be the second to try such a thing after Klaus, given his penchant for doing anything that might stir a reaction from their father. So, Diego takes a sip to spite him, then another, and another after that. 

“It’s nice, right?” Klaus bounces on the balls of his feet and his giddy nature, as always, becomes a tad contagious. 

Diego hums, placing the empty flute onto the marble table top. “W-Way better than that shit you steal from D-Da-Dad.”

“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Mom gave Pogo a hot whiskey with his dinner last year when he had that cold. It’s nutritious.”

“That’s not w-wh-wh-- ”

“ _ Yeah, yeah. _ You want another?”

Diego does, but he worries that doing so might further impact his fragile standing with their father. There is, however, a chance that Allison might have persuaded Luther to try a sip himself, maybe they even share cigarettes in the attic (even as Diego thinks this, he knows it’s not true). Perhaps then he can justify trying a little more, for the amount he had was such a small sip, and he would very much like to _ taste the stars  _ too. 

The crystal is cold between his fingers, delicate and light, as he picks up another of Klaus’ drinks. Together, they sip at the champagne, the fizz rising to pop tiny bubbles against their noses. Diego smiles against the rim, flute fogging with his breath as he begins to laugh. He’s not sure who started it, and it’s probable that Klaus’ laughter is the result of something other than the mere feeling of being relatively content, but it doesn’t matter. None of it does.

Then there is a third voice, sharp and pitchy, that joins their own. A hiccup and a content sigh, and Five is laughing too. 

-:-

The presentation could have gone better, and it’s not that Diego and Klaus are entirely responsible, but they will be the only pair blamed. 

The car ride home is filled only by Klaus’ occasional muttering and the annoying depth of Luther’s breathing. 

The buzz has worn off slightly, but the glow of the night still remains. He can see it on each of them, despite how quiet they are. He knows that Luther managed to schmooze an acceptable amount, that he’d had a chance to talk to someone who’d had a vague involvement with the Mars Rover. He knows that Dad is happy with Number One, for how he’d allowed him an extra few minutes to go to the bathroom before they left. 

Allison’s still wearing Diego’s jacket, shoulders back as if daring Luther to say anything about it. Diego’s a little cold but he figures that’s a good thing, that it might help keep his temperature that bit lower so Mom won’t have to worry so much. He’s not expecting Allison to return it until everyone’s gone to bed, because doing so with an audience would mean acknowledging that it’s there, thus having to explain the awkward truth of why she took it in the first place. 

Diego decides to spare her the embarrassment. 

Klaus’ head is lolling to the side, resting heavy on Allison’s shoulders. To the others, it might appear as sloth, like their brother possesses a fraction less stamina than the rest of them and was unable to endure the entire party. Diego knows better. 

He knows that Klaus didn’t make him wait outside the bathroom for twenty minutes because he was having a little stomach trouble, that his pupils shouldn’t have been dilated with the lights of the party shining so bright. 

“Did you take some cake for Vanya?” Ben whispers at his side, shoulder leaning against Diego’s. He’s warm from the night, from the excitement of meeting a real life person he admires. Diego thinks he may understand how Ben feels, because he’d let the company of the night distract him too. 

“Wh-Why w-w-would I take cake for Vanya?”

“Because you always do.”

“No, I-- I don’t.”

He does. Every time. He’s just too ashamed to tell Ben that he forgot. 

-:-

_ Date of Entry: 4/22/04 _

_ Void is colder now. All the time. I see Three in my now memories to make sure that she is in bed and safe. Every string is in its place. Mom is charging and Pogo is in his quarters. Father is in his study. Everyone is home. I am home but I am there too, where there is nothing and everything, all at once.  _

_ Number Five is not there. Number Five is not anywhere that I can see. His string cannot be touched. _

_ Father has been giving me more specific tasks; this has been very helpful. Pictures of people are best, but often there are other things that will do, such as toys or clothes or items that hold sentimental value.  _ ~~_Like Three’s perf--_ ~~ _ This time, it was a stuffed bear with a frayed yellow ribbon tied loosely around its neck. I did not use the bath because I did not want to get the bear wet. One of its paws was slightly torn and I wanted to ask Mom to fix it, but Father said no.  _

_ I know who it belongs to. A little girl. I found her in the Void with her Mother, in a moving car. I did not think that I would be able to provide a location to Father, but after a while, I managed to find their strings and latch onto their trajectory. I told Father where they were and he said “well done”.  _

Diego likes to read over his entries before he submits them to Dad at the end of each week. He scribbles over the mention of Allison’s perfume repeatedly and wishes he could remove certain pages, but Dad would notice the tears on the spine of his journal and berate him for omitting data. 

It’s not like he thinks there’s much too these pages, but sometimes Diego will wake in the middle of the night and the words just hit him. He’s not sure where it is that they come from, but they are often frightening, and they do not stop.

_ Circle that goes round and round her like Ouroboros _

_ They like it cold _

_ Galaxy adrift _

_ Six atmospheres thick _

_ The things we grasp at _

_ You are trapped in the wrong dimension? _

_ ǝɹǝɥʇ uı oɓ ʇ,uop  _

Sometimes he will wake and draw things, nothing like Ben’s pictures, and instead all dark and sharp with a depth of shadows. Once, he woke to hands covered in ink, blotches of it staining his face and sheets; Vanya stood in the darkening doorway, watching him, like he was liable to bite. 

Diego’s tried hiding his journal when he sleeps, so that these bizarre snippets from his dreams are not available for anyone but him to see, but his vulnerable sleeping mind resorts to other things: writing on walls, even scratching them with his knives when he once tried to hide his pen.

Dad never returns his journals, so Diego can’t fathom what he must think of them. He does his very best not to feel embarrassed about what they contain, but it’s difficult when he knows that his father is disappointed by the majority of information Diego provides. 

He’s never clear or concise like Luther and Ben. But, what to others may seem like waffle, like senseless ramblings of an untrustworthy mind, to Diego, it is  _ vital. _ Each word he writes, each thing that he draws, holds the same amount of absolute importance as the last. Though his father never seems to comprehend that; almost like he doesn’t particularly wish to. 

He’s sitting on the sofa outside his father’s office, where guests often wait for appointments while Diego and his siblings peer around the corner -- any shot at seeing someone who’s not family. The backs of his legs press against the cold leather, imprints of the button puckered hollows rising on the skin of his calves. 

_ Like a lamb up for the slaughter, _ Five says. 

“‘M not a lamb.” Diego mutters, irritated. Five only laughs. 

_ So you’re a sheep then? _

“A w-wolf.”

_ Sure, you are.  _

“You s-sound like Da-- ”

“Number Two!”

“Dad!”

His father, standing across from him in the vacant arch of his office, does not respond. He simply turns on his heel and retreats into the next room. The doors are left open; Diego is expected to follow. 

“Place your journal on my desk,.”

Diego does as he’s told, a week’s worth of information passing over into his father’s possession. He’s not invited to sit, so he remains standing

“How are you, Number Two?” 

“I don-- ” Diego falters, unable to wrap his brain around the question his father just asked. 

“Are you well?” His father asks this with somewhat less patience and, in a rare occurrence, flips through Diego’s journal while he is still present.

“I think s-s-so.” Diego responds; Dad’s brow tightens on his monocle. “I me-mean yes, Sir. I am well.”

“Excellent.” Dad says, closing the journal and placing it on an ornate glass tray to his left. Diego smiles at this, a moment he doesn’t understand the origin of but foolishly basks in nonetheless.

“The efficiency with which you located Number Three was rather impressive, I must say. Did you write of the exploit in your journal?”

“I did, Sir.”

Hands behind his back, Diego squeezes his fingers together. Just as Luther would, he maintains neutrality in his expression. Excitement is a childish and trivial thing -- Dad wouldn’t like it very much. 

“Where is Number Three at this very moment?” Dad asks, pen poised over his leather bound book. 

Total darkness and white noise are not required for such a straightforward task. The house is a landscape with which Diego is intimately familiar, and even without his powers, habit alone would assist him greatly in being able to determine the exact location of each of his siblings. 

“She’s in her room.” Diego says, though it’s a lie. His sister is at her usual haunt, perched halfway out the attic window, blowing smoke out into the evening air. “Reading, I think.”

“Do you see her or is it that a particular sensation is informing your answer?”

Never before have questions from his father been just that: questions. While Diego is certain that there must be some kind of ulterior motive here, that he ought to choose his words carefully, his father’s queries lack a particular brand of forcefulness that has often resulted in tears and restless nights. 

“I d-- I don’t need to enter the, uh, the  _ Void _ to locate her -- or… or any of them, Sir. Not in the-- in the house.”

Dad writes some more.

“Where is Number Six?”

Diego follows the lurch in his gut without thought. Something innate and completely inexplicable -- a point of contention between Diego and his father, but real and undoubtedly true nonetheless. 

“W-With Seven.” He pauses, eyes flitting around the study as his concentration lapses. “I’m not sure wh-what they’re d-d-doing. But they’re in her rr-room.”

Dad hums and follows with a quickfire round of questions. Find Number One, Pogo, is Abhijat in the house? Why can’t he find Mom?  _ Because she’s not a real person. _

Things become decidedly less pleasant after that. 

It’s not like they haven’t done this before, just that it’s never been  _ solely  _ this. There’s always more -- the bath, nose bleeds, the space under the floorboards. Dad’s not examining, experimenting, dissecting him like a lab rat. He’s just asking (demanding might be a better word for it) and Diego can’t figure out why. 

“You see, Number Two, it is moments like these that I find myself pondering the lengths that we must go to in order to achieve your fullest potential.” 

_ Oh, that can’t be good,  _ Five says. Diego pinches the skin at the inside of his wrist. 

“If you are now capable of doing so much with so little -- ” Diego wants to tell his father that this is no new development, just that, up until now, Dad had outwardly cared very little for how his powers tend to interact. 

“Then we are obligated to explore the absolute furthest reaches of your capabilities, don’t you agree?”

_ Furthest reaches of your capabilities _ . 

_ What? _

Like every single thing they had tried and tested, milked for all it was worth, was merely a walk in the park. 

“Y-Yes, Sir.”

“You need not fret, Number Two, I do not plan to… throw you in at the deep end, as it were.” Dad looks at him then, the right side of his mouth quirking the slightest amount as though he expects Diego to find humour in this. 

“It is rather simple, for your benefit.” Suffering from conversational whiplash, with the backhanded compliments and blatant insults, Diego’s posture has slumped. Defeated. Exhausted by the fact that his father is dragging this along needlessly, likely for the sake of his own entertainment. 

“We are going to increase your training hours in my office, with the singular agenda of weaning you off your dependency on the bath.” 

“‘M not de-d-dep-- ”

“This is not up for debate, boy.” Dad’s hands slam against the desk and Diego jumps where he stands. 

“Your opinion does not matter to me in the slightest. Whatever connection it is that you have with the _Void_ _must_ be explored independently of your physiological abilities. Which, of course, we will continue to test the boundaries of when I see fit.” 

Diego steps back onto the Persian rug and there is nothing more he wants than to contradict his father. There is no logic to this. Yet no one can fathom that Diego’s powers are intrinsically linked to one another and have decided, without consultation or care for his opinion, that their connection is senseless. 

“Needing to be submerged in the water every time you are required to make use of your most -- and let us be candid here ---  _ useful _ power, is not sustainable, Number Two. There is no argument here, no compromise.”

Five would dispute this. He’d get riled up and fling barbs across the desk, matching their father word for word. He’d counter with a training regime that makes sense. Five would have made connections at the party, traded sips of champagne for snippets of information. He wouldn’t have let Klaus get so out of hand. He would have remembered to bring Vanya home some cake.

But Diego is not Five. Diego is here and he is the only one who will feel the consequence of going up against Dad. And the truth of it is, whether he fights or not, the result will still be the same. So, he nods. He backs down, as he always does; he relents.

It’s not that he wants to be in the bath, but with how sick he has been, the trips there have become few and far between. To increase his training alone is suspicious, taking so much interest when prior to this Dad had treated Diego’s hidden ability largely as an inconvenience, something to be dealt with and hidden away. 

Why the sudden urgency? Why bother even consulting Diego when he has blindly followed the whims of his father over the last eleven years?

Diego, back then, would have been proud over such a level of attention, or commitment to his progress. He would have beamed up at his cold and callous father and mistaken this abrupt and intense interest for a form of affection. 

Now, it is different. Now he knows that if his father truly wished to explore the absolute lengths of Diego’s powers, the darkest depths of his reach, that he would attempt to do so in the most suitable environment; not crammed under the floorboards of a musty office with a poorly tuned radio for background noise. 

It’s all too easy. Too nice. 

Dad wants convenience. Mobility. And seeing as Diego is not permitted to discuss his power with even his own siblings, there must be another, far more private, reason for all of this. One that is not apposite to the Umbrella Academy but to his more profitable, sinister endeavours. 

“Well, boy? Are you finished  _ daydreaming  _ or must I have Grace deal with you?”

“No, Sir, I…”

Diego doesn’t have a choice in the matter, but even if he did, there is only one course of action he can take in order to determine his father’s true motive. He nods, shoulders back, the picture of Number One. 

“I agree, Sir. This seems like the m-m-most ap-appropriate solution.” 

Dad looks miffed, like he’d been expecting a fight. Despite this, he reclines into his chair and regards Diego with the same level of cold scrutiny that one would only give to an object. 

“Very well, Number Two. You are dismissed.”

-:-

Five is stuck and Allison was kidnapped. 

Klaus comes and goes as he pleases. 

Diego’s light headed from blood loss, nose still stinging where it has begun to clot. His evening training had been brutal: bombarded with images for hours on end, beneath the heat of a lamp light, attached to monitors and overly aware of his current condition, so much so that he found it near impossible to locate a single person without the serenity of the bath. 

Though he hates it there, at least it is a place that he can focus. Do exactly what his father wants. Above water, in the hot and clammy air, it feels like an interrogation. His father’s urgency has bled into Diego’s hard-earned ability to stay calm and has rendered him unbearably tense, to the point that there is now a sharp and throbbing headache beginning at his temple.

“He said he’d be back by nine.” Ben is sitting on Allison’s bed, shoes touching the ground, ready to spring into action with no apparent destination.

"I think we should tell Dad." Luther says this with such a level of self-assuredness that Diego finds it vaguely disturbing. 

"Uh, no." Allison says, disagreeing with him for once. "That is an absolutely awful idea."

"What if Dr. Terminal's got him, huh? What if Klaus isn't as lucky as you were."

"Too soon..." Ben winces, placing a comforting hand on Allison's back. 

Ben's right about it being too soon. He's right to reach for Allison in a moment such as this, when they came so close to losing her. Diego doesn't think that she'd want  _ him  _ to, reach out and touch her, that is. So, he remains seated at her windowsill, staring through the cloudy panels of glass at the rain which has begun to smatter the pavement below.

"Look." Ben carries on, taking control of the situation ahead of Number One, perhaps because he's the one who knows Klaus best -- this is a fact in the Hargreeves' household. "We all know what's going on here-- "

"Do we?" Luther interrupts only for Ben to plough on. 

"At first it was just cough medicine and cigarettes, maybe weed on a particularly bad day. But we've all seen those educational videos with Pogo, it's obvious that Klaus has escalated. And those kinds of drugs, well, he's not going to find them anywhere  _ good. _ "

"We can't just sneak out, Ben."

"Why not?" It's Vanya who poses this to Luther, entirely non-offensive, meek, seeming merely curious. "We used to sneak out all the time." 

"But this is different. This is a mission. One of our own has gone missing. Dad has to be alerted of the problem."

"Yes, Luther, by  _ choice. _ " Allison reminds him. “Klaus left of his own volition. He’s in a dodgy part of town, not a burning building.”

“And how do we know Dad would even _ care? _ ” Ben asks what they are all thinking. “He acted like Allison being kidnapped was no big deal. And when he decided to  _ actually  _ look for her he just knew her location straight away. Took us directly there as if he had known all along.”

Luther places a protective hand on Allison’s shoulder, only to be shrugged off a moment after. 

“You  _ really  _ think Dad orchestrated Allison’s kidnapping?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that, I…” Ben deflates, shooting their sister an apologetic look. Diego would agree with his suspicions immediately, if not for the fact that he knows they are poorly founded. “I’m just-- I’m worried about him, okay? Klaus’ powers, they… don’t benefit him in the slightest. They’re  _ traumatising, _ and I don’t think you three truly understand what that’s like.”

_ Bullshit,  _ Diego wants to say. 

Like, what? Do they all think that his random fits of fever and perpetual nosebleeds are just another unfortunate byproduct of his  _ stutter?  _

But that’s not fair. They don’t know. How could they? Still, being dismissed so readily grates on him, headache worsening with the clench of his teeth. He presses his temple against the cool of the window pane and does his best to shut the conversation out. 

“What?” Allison says this harshly, perhaps because of Ben’s earlier theory. “So you’re saying that  _ Vanya  _ understands?”

“In a way, yes.”

“Guys…” He feels Vanya step a little further into the fray. “I don’t think we should get into this right now.”

“No.  _ Let’s _ .”

“I really think we should tell Dad…”

“Look, I get it if you three don’t want to go, but at least hold off on telling Dad so Vanya and I can go look.”

Diego would laugh at this if not for how his skull is pounding. Sure, Ben and Vanya would have the Horror as a backup, but Ben, who is so wholly uninclined towards violence would only resort to using  _ Them  _ if he had absolutely  _ no  _ other option. Yes, he has combat training, but he never excelled in it like the rest of them, and Vanya has _ none.  _ How do they hope to manage on the streets, looking for Klaus in the worst parts of town, alone?

Hell, he doubts they could even manage to carry Klaus’ likely unconscious body between them. 

“Vanya can’t go!” Luther barks. “Then you’d have two people to protect.”

“Oh, no, I disagree.” Allison bites, and Diego knows that nothing good is coming. “Vanya is  _ traumatised,  _ she’s been through  _ so  _ much. I’m sure she can handle drug dealers and criminals.”

Diego feels Vanya step back.  _ God, _ he wishes they’d all stop moving. 

“You don’t even know where he is! I’m not allowing  _ two  _ members of my team to go and wander aimlessly in search of the other.”

“Well  _ one  _ member of your team is out there  _ alone  _ and probably in danger, Luther. But you’d rather sit here on your ass and wait for Dad to do something about it!”

Diego flinches at Ben’s outburst, but the silence that blankets the room at the shock of it is far too short. 

“I really think,” Vanya tries again, “that if we just ring around the hospitals and see if someone brought him in, that would be a good starting point.”

“There is no starting point! Klaus  _ chose  _ to leave. We’re not going to find him until he comes walking through that front door in-- ”

“I c-c-- ”

Diego chokes, turning to face them. Anything in the world to make them all stop for even a moment. 

“We don’t have time for this, Diego.” Luther interrupts, but Ben shushes him, tells them to let him finish. 

Diego wipes his nose with the sleeve of his sweater and it comes back bloody. His head is pounding and he’s boneless with exhaustion, but he’s going to feel that way whether he helps them look for Klaus or not. He’s found enough people for Dad today, what’s just  _ one  _ for himself? 

“I can find him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw:  
> \- disordered eating due to illness  
> \- extreme weight loss
> 
> as you can tell, i've deviated from my original plan with chapter titles to keep them at one word. this title is from the song by novo amor, of the same name. i've spent a long time trying to get this chapter right, mainly because i've been writing excerpts from vanya's book for later chapters and it has become kind of addictive?? i wasn't expecting it, honestly. 
> 
> i also just wanted to say thank you again for all of your kind comments, kudos, and subscriptions/bookmarks. each one means an awful lot to me and i really enjoy seeing your opinions on how the story is progressing. even the fact that you've clicked on this fic at all makes me so happy! stay safe and see you next time c':


	15. life was a willow and it bent right to your wind.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> None of that is true, it's not even what he had intended to say, but Luther stopped waiting for Diego a long time ago. Long before the reveal of the Kraken, long before the loss of Five. Maybe he'd been looking for an excuse to discredit Number Two and bump him down a rank all along.
> 
> "I didn't _lie._ " Diego bites out, hands shaking under the table. "'M not a liar just bec-c-because you d-don't understand it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before we begin this chapter, i just wanted to thank @crystalrainwing for commissioning some beautiful [fanart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867194) for this fic by @homosexual-sidecast on tumblr. i'm so grateful and it makes me so happy that this even exists??? thank you? it's so sad and beautiful. 
> 
> triggers in the end notes!

Drops of rain pelt against the window like a shower of bullets. The night is dark but the  _ Void  _ is darker. Diego is sitting, waiting for it to come to him on Allison’s bedroom floor, a silk scarf blackening his vision and the radio tuned between stations. 

While there’s no need for everyone else to be on the floor, they have joined him, sitting in a circle and treating this with the same level of vaguely disturbing curiosity as Klaus’ séances. 

They’re humouring him, he knows. Perhaps playing up to the addled version of himself that their father has made appear most prominent. But it doesn’t matter -- he wants what they want. To find Klaus, to bring him home without a single hair harmed on his curly head. 

In his hands he holds a tether -- Klaus’ favourite stuffed animal, the one Mom tucks under his chin each night with a kiss (Diego was never told this piece of information, he saw it in his head once). 

It’s a unicorn, generally plush but quite matted in places, likely from snot or tears, because Klaus won’t let Mom wash it. In this way, it is the perfect link to his brother, a material item in which Klaus has stored parts of himself, feelings that he was unable to cope with, that overwhelmed him like the swell of a storm. 

“Any day now, Karate Kid.” 

Diego pinches a unicorn hoof between his forefinger and thumb at Allison’s jab. He’s not used to an audience.

“Give him a minute, would you?”

Not that he can see it, but he knows by Ben’s quick defense that it is he who reaches over to pinch comfortingly at Diego’s knee. His muscles relax slightly at the action. 

“Two, I think I speak for all of us when I say we should just skip this nonsense and tell Da-- ”

“Luther, he’s trying to  _ help. _ ”

“I don’t think you understand the severity of this,  _ Vanya. _ This is real life stuff.”

Allison laughs, “Oh no, I think  _ Vanya  _ understands better than  _ any  _ of-- ”

“ _ Shut up. _ ” 

Diego snaps, though his throat strains at the exertion. He inhales through his nostril but the sensation is a sore one that stings and causes his eyes to water. 

“What the hell are you planning on d-- ”

“ _ No. _ ” He catches Allison mid-barb, ripping her scarf from his face and taking a moment to look at each of them. “I am  _ going  _ to find K-Klaus and you’re  _ not  _ going to ask any questions. I know w-w-what I’m d-doing, okay?”

To an extent, he does. To the extent of finding Klaus in the  _ Void  _ and pinpointing where that is in reality. To the extent of fighting anyone who might come between them and their brother. 

But not to the extent of the _ after;  _ of having to explain to his siblings how exactly he came about Klaus’ location and why he never said anything about this ability before. 

Luther sighs, like Diego is being childish. “How do we know that this isn’t some elaborate prank that you and Klaus thought up to frighten everyone?”

Diego seethes, fingers squeezing the unicorn to the point of almost shredding its stuffed limbs apart. 

“Because up until twenty f-fuh--  _ ugh!” _ He tosses the creature to his right in frustration and Vanya scrambles to pick it up. “‘Til twenty m-minutes ago I didn’t even know that K-Klaus was mi-m-missing. Quite being a d-d- _ dick, _ Luther, and just let me do my job.”

“Your-- ”

Diego disregards the inevitable question and secures the scarf over his eyes once more, knotted tight at the back of his head to the point of hurting. He breathes, deep and even, clutching the stuffed toy that Vanya placed back in his lap. He focuses, or does his very best to, as his siblings fall into silence around him. 

All except one. 

_ I’ve got all the time in the world,  _ Five snarks,  _ but you’re running a little short on it.  _

_ Leave me alone,  _ Diego thinks. 

It’s all too much: five of them crammed together in his mind while he searches for the last of their number. Four of his siblings wrapped around him in a circle, protective, full of pressure and judgement and morbid curiosity. Another sniping, always demanding, parrying, doubting. 

The static increases in its volume, near deafening in the silence he has created. His eyes squeeze shut in frustration, fists scrunched with worry and fear over the many truths that threaten to overwhelm the warped reality that his family has always known. 

Distantly, he’s aware that Luther is still talking, that the others are muttering amongst themselves, but Diego reassures himself in his actions with the fact that none of them really need to understand anything about what he is capable of for it to be  _ true.  _

There’s a whole world out there, one that they are slowly growing accustomed to, one that Diego is intimately familiar with. He taps into that, into the back alleys and dive bars, the drug dens, the hospital waiting rooms and morgues; he digs in deep, into the plush unicorn, into all the places that Klaus could be. 

When he opens his eyes, it is to black.

Comfort lies in this, now. A relief that he is again capable; after such a length of time where the  _ Void  _ was not a place he could go freely, not when his body had been fooled into thinking it was trapped with Five. 

Diego takes a step in the shallow waters, hands empty of the unicorn and rather, latched onto Klaus’ string instead. 

It’s twisted, tangled in things it shouldn’t be, knotted in places. Diego hates himself for not noticing sooner, for skimming over the bumps in a lifeline for the sake of acting like he could keep a hold of his remaining siblings. He’d been complicit in this, hadn’t he? 

Klaus’ string isn’t weak, no, it’s just a little frayed along the way. It’s worn weary and a tad brittle, but it’s there. He’s there. With a three wall surround and trash on the ground around him. A door is open, though Diego can’t see through it for the light and smoke that spills out, and Klaus is peering inside. He leans heavily on the frame, swaying, head tipped back and neck rolling to the beat of the pounding music. 

Diego doesn’t know where Klaus is, but he feels it. And he knows, without doubt, that to leave Klaus alone a second longer would be a grave mistake. 

He calls for his brother, and it echoes off of walls that don’t really exist, before being swallowed by the darkness. 

_ Klaus. _

_ Klaus. _

_ Klaus. _

No response, nothing but a shake of his shoulder from the reality of Allison’s bedroom before Klaus’ head whips around heavily, hanging low, looking his way only to spin back towards the open door.

“Diego!” The noise sounds as if from above, and with a heavy grasp -- far more jarring than the hold of his father -- he is yanked from the _ Void. _

“Christ,” Allison says, and he feels tissues being shoved into his lap as he struggles to remove his makeshift blindfold. She helps him, likely to prevent any staining on her treasured scarf. “Wipe your nose.”

“No time.” Diego says, wobbling into standing and pretending that Luther doesn’t have to grab him to keep him steady. “Klau-- in trouble.”

Luther scoffs, though it’s evident from his stance that he will be joining them on their hunt. “What kind of trouble?”

“The bad kind. I know wh-where he is.”

Ben perks at this, “Can you take us to him?”

Diego is standing on a line, ready to tip over the precipice on either side at any given moment. He dares not put faith in their belief, but can store a small amount of relief in the fact that some of them are willing to give him a chance.

“Of-- Of  _ course  _ I can.”

-:-

The Umbrella Academy doesn't have rain coats, because Dad thinks the material is unbecoming. Diego thinks the material is practical and that he’d rather wear one of those clear plastic rain ponchos than catch his death from the cold again. 

But they don’t have time for such luxuries. 

Luther holds an umbrella under which Allison stands. Diego, Ben, and Vanya decide to take the less conspicuous route and simply suffer beneath the brutal shower. 

Diego walks, feet slapping the wet pavement, soaking his socks and the bottoms of his green sweatpants. A voice, that mercifully sounds like Mom and not Five, reminds him that such weather could hinder his slowly improving health. 

“Left.” He says, mere milliseconds after the instinct carries him. The others follow his lead like this for the next few turns. Not that Diego mistakes this for belief in what he can do, but it’s nice to be in charge for once. 

Of course, Luther won’t allow him to think as much for more than a minute and bounds up behind him, leaving Allison to protect herself from the rain. 

“Where are you taking us?” 

Diego keeps his gaze ahead, at the passers by, the slowly emptying streets, the way the rain makes everything dull and grey. 

“To our brother.”

“Which one?” Luther asks this like it’s no big thing, but Diego can hear it in his voice, how he’s teasing. How he wants Diego to choke their missing brother’s name out because he can never manage to say it properly. 

“Four.” He responds, like it’s easy. It’s not. Nothing about any of this is easy, but pretending is easier. It hurts less. 

He veers left once more and the others follow without needing to be told. They’re in a darker part of the city now, where everything seems to loom and tower above them. The shadows are deeper and the light is rare, and the rain is heavier than ever. 

The streets are a tangle and sharp turns come upon them out of nowhere. Still, Luther keeps pace, even as Diego wordlessly steps to the side, ducks through archways, bypasses apartment blocks and clubs and bars brimming with people looking for shelter from the rain. 

There are so many strings, but he casts them all aside. His nose burns because of the cold air, because of the hot blood that clogs his nostrils. What a sight he must be, soaked to the bone and walking with conviction in an unknown direction. His brother at his side, golden, even in the wet dark, the picture of a leader, walking without a single idea of where he’s going. Diego is still jealous. 

When they begin to gain on Klaus, there is a sudden shift in trajectory. Diego grinds to a halt on the pavement and Ben walks right into him. 

“No.” He says, though surely the others cannot grasp what he is saying  _ no  _ to, it matters little. Pivoting, Diego walks back down the alley from which they came and turns in a direction he had been certain they would not have to venture. 

Luther huffs and the others hurry to keep up. Diego didn’t think he was moving that fast, but without the sounds of his laboured breath to match their own, it’s hard to gauge. 

They come upon a smaller street, now far from the Academy, shrouded in strings that fall like webbing and muddle everything up. Diego’s not sure where they are now, for his mind does not operate as a map, but it is overwhelming and dark, with things that ought to go unspoken. 

He and his siblings converge, a mass of dark green in a splash of grey. 

“Why are we stopping?” Ben asks, hesitant, as if afraid of stirring another conflict. 

“Need a m-m-- a minute.”

Diego’s found people in a car before, so this should be no challenge, and yet, it’s as if Klaus is moving at the speed of light, making tracks in the inner workings of the city and leaving no time to catch up. 

“I thought you said you could find him.” Luther says, doubting as ever. Diego shoves him with an elbow, tired of this attitude, of his wet clothes and sore bones. 

“I  _ will  _ find him.” He responds. Swiping rainwater from his brow, he closes his eyes in hope of some peace in this rolling storm. There is no reprieve, but clarity comes in small amounts; a feeling in his gut, gooseflesh alight along his nape, a brother close, but not yet close enough. 

Diego grabs the nearest hand --- Ben, Vanya? --- and marches down the street, past drunken patrons and people peddling for cash. He cuts through the sudden crowds of the night time hour, all beneath their umbrellas and rushing one way or another in some kind of bitter irony. 

There is an alleyway beneath an awning, by the side of a butcher. The smell is foul and it is Ben who should be bothered most of all, but he soldiers on as if unaffected. Perhaps the Horror is easier to control in times of quiet urgency; perhaps  _ They  _ too need to sleep, wherever it is that  _ They  _ live.

Ben moves towards a mass, convulsing on the wet ground, next to a drain where an array of litter is sopping and stuck, pasted to the pavement. 

Diego is not brave enough to run over, to touch. Ben goes, unflinching, crouching down to regard the heap of clothing, the body that wears them, the curly and dark hair that peeks over the top of the coat. 

They follow him, wary and slow, as he places a firm grip on the only available shoulder and spins the body towards him. There is a single, horrifying moment where each of them flinch in anticipation of what they might see --- of what Diego has seen from other victims a hundred times over. Drug dealers are not merciful people. 

Allison gasps and Vanya hides her face in Diego’s shoulder. Luther steels himself. And when Ben turns Klaus over…

He is _laughing._

Hiccups echo between them, the rapid rise and fall of Klaus’ chest as pearly whites shine up in their direction. His smile is wide and his eyes are even wider, faraway and somehow still absolutely present.

“Benerino!” Klaus exclaims, hands reaching up to make grabbing motions for their brother. “You found me!”

Luther looks ready to blow a gasket, but says nothing as he roughly lifts Klaus from the ground by his underarms. Diego is expected to help, he knows this, but the sluggish bleeding of his nose and his pulsing headache have slowed him down a little. 

“Diego found you, actually.” Ben sighs, picking Klaus’ jacket up to drape over his arm. “Not that you made it easy.”

Limbs fly in Diego’s direction as this is said, a sudden burst of energy from their seemingly limp brother who has decided that wet kisses to Diego’s cheeks are adequate thanks. 

“Twoots! My _ hero. _ ”

Klaus is a fraction taller, always has been, so Diego does his best not to buckle under the weight of his arms alone; arms that wrap around his neck and  _ squeeze,  _ that use him as a prop to stay standing.

Allison grabs Klaus’ jacket from Ben, shaking the water out of it and swiping at the grit and dirt with her own sleeve. 

“What did you take?” She says this flatly and Luther gapes at her frankness. 

“ _ Moi? _ ” Klaus has an elbow crooked around Diego’s shoulder and the palm attached to it presses flat to his chest in innocence that none of them could ever truly believe. “I took a walk, dear Allison. On this lovely, Spring eve.” 

Ben mutters off to the side, eyes rolling. “It’s Summer.”

Klaus waves a hand in dismissal. “That’s subjective.”

“We’re in the middle of a  _ storm. _ ” Allison reminds them, nodding at Luther to remove Klaus from Diego’s frame. “I don’t  _ care  _ what season it is. We need to get you somewhere you can sober up before Dad finds out.”

There is an unspoken thing, a collective question that runs through them and begs to be said aloud: 

_ What would Five do? _

“Griddy’s?” Vanya answers, voice ringing clear like a bell in the tunnel of the alleyway.

They all nod, brief and reticent. “Griddy’s.”

-:-

Griddy's is a beacon in the night. Neon beams light up the street, reflecting off the wet blacktop of the surrounding parking lot, and offer a kind of inexplicable warmth to the siblings. Ben leads the charge, while Luther and Allison do their best to subtly support Klaus between them. Vanya brings up the rear, hand on the small of Diego's back. Five is there too, in spirit; in the forefront of Diego's mind. 

The six of them squeeze into a booth, Klaus sandwiched between Luther and Allison, Diego between Ben and Vanya. Someone stuffs his hands full of napkins from the dispenser, wipes at where drops of red are staining the table. It reminds him of Five, long ago when Diego's nose had bled all over the dinner table and Five had rallied the others into slowing the flow before their father would inevitably notice. Five's not here anymore, or at least not fully.

_ Let them help you, _ Five says.

_ Hypocrite,  _ Diego thinks. 

A foot hooks around his ankle underneath the table, latching on like a clamp and making him feel trapped.

He grunts, jerks away, throwing his weight against the back of the booth. 

"It's just a little footsie, Twoots," Klaus waves from the other side, grin sly and mischievous. "My toes have  _ perished  _ from the cold."

Allison slides down in her seat to peer under the table. "It's no use, Klaus. Jack Frost over there will only make it worse." 

Diego hums, a bitter little laugh. "Not like C-Cold Bitch is any better."

"Two!" The look on Luther's face is almost worth it. How Vanya gasps at his side and Ben's head falls into his hands. But it's Allison's reaction that seals the deal. 

"Touché. I thought we'd lost you there for a second."

"Not yet." Diego says, oblivious to how morbid it may sound. 

The waitress, Agnes (soft and kind, she likes birds. She likes animals and late night teleshopping. She puts lemon juice in her hair and prays before bed time) comes to take their orders on a small notepad. 

They remain silent, picking away at the space between them as she prepares their food. Diego’s trying now, not to get blood everywhere. Because Agnes is nice and she shouldn’t have to clean all that up. Klaus doesn’t seem to care much, pulling chunks of napkin apart to blow across the table like confetti. When their donuts arrive, Klaus greets them with applause. 

“So, what’s up?” He asks, through a mouthful of rainbow sprinkles. 

And Diego can’t help it, how he laughs. It’s not funny, it’s  _ not.  _ Not with the anxiety that has been building in his chest since somewhat revealing the half-truth of things to his siblings.  _ He found Klaus!  _ Easy as anything, just like he found Allison and Five and every criminal they’ve been on the lookout for since their debut almost two years ago. He found Klaus and Klaus is acting like there was never anything amiss. 

Luther looks fit to murder them, dropping his donut onto the plate with a clatter, fingers gripping the edge of the table. 

“You ran off, Klaus. To do  _ drugs,  _ no less.”

Klaus waves a hand at his, sprinkles flying across the table. “No I  _ didn’t.  _ Stop making things up, Lu.” 

“Is this some kind of  _ joke  _ to you both?” Luther asks, and Diego cuts his laughter off. Because it’s not. He’s not conspiring with Klaus here, not in the slightest. He’d much rather be back home and in his bed right now. 

“Diego’s been in training all evening, Luther.” Ben says in his defense and Diego nudges a little closer to him for the warmth that he emanates. “I don’t think he and Klaus had the time or wits to plan this out.”

Klaus’ spine straightens, hands reaching out to grab at Ben for his offense. “Rude. So _ rude. _ ”

Luther has turned away now, like they are unworthy of his attention. He’s eyeing up the jukebox on the far side of the shop, as if he doesn’t have a better selection at home, where Dad lets him spend his pocket money on music that nobody else even likes. 

“So, I found you.” Diego says, cutting across the petty arguing of Klaus and Ben. “Just like I found Al-Allison.”

He wants Luther to turn back around, to listen and understand that while he may be Number One, Diego did this. He’s  _ always  _ done this. He found Allison when Luther could not and he’ll find anyone else while Luther carries on in his blindness. 

But it’s Allison who speaks instead, indignant and perhaps a little ill looking at the mention of her unmentionable kidnapping. 

“You  _ what? _ ”

“I…” Where to go with this? What to say? He’s already said too much, Dad will know all about it. How much would it hurt to simply tell Allison the _ truth? _ Doesn’t she deserve it? Don’t they all?

“W-When D-Do-- Terminal took you, I followed your-- your string.”

He rubs his sleeve roughly against his nose. For once, the others are waiting for him to finish talking.

“Like w-when I throw my, my knives. There are strings. I follow them.”

Ben doesn’t sound accusatory, only curious, when he asks: “But you alter the trajectory, right?”

“Yeah,” It’s hard not to become frustrated despite his brother’s patience. Diego doesn’t know how to explain it properly because it’s an innate thing, just like Ben might struggle to convey the ins and outs of his powers and the dimension they come from. 

“So I m-m-make the knives follow the strings.”

“The strings follow the strings…?” Ben tries and Diego shrugs, because that’s as good a way to put it as any.

“Wait, no,” Allison says, placing her palm flat on the table. “I’m sorry, but… that doesn’t explain how you found me.”

_ It does,  _ Diego thinks _. I followed your string.  _

_ Go easy on them, _ Five says.  _ Try to be a little more pedestrian. _

_ Don’t mention the bath, _ is what that means. Not that Diego wishes to. Ever. They wouldn’t understand -- even Dad doesn’t, or chooses not to. They’d think him crazy or dramatic, or deprived of oxygen and prone to delusions due to the nature of his ‘new’ training.

“He told me to find you.” He manages, in a single, clear rush of words. “I c-can do that -- find all of you. I just need a t-teh-tether.”

“Klaus’ unicorn.” Vanya says, almost a whisper, and Diego nods. Klaus regards him then, eyes half-lidded but grounding. Like he’s seeing something and doing his best to wrap his mind around it. 

“Who told you to find me?” Allison asks, with a hint of desperation. Ben’s words must have bothered her: that Dad likely knew her location all along. And, of course, Diego’s ability to follow the strings and Dad’s utilisation of it could prove innocence, but he doesn’t particularly feel that his father is entitled to such a pardon. Not when Five was the one who really pushed Diego to look for their sister. “Was it Dad?”

“No.” He says, confident in his choice. “Five.”

Vanya looks at him then, all hopeful, like she really believes. She promised, didn’t she? There’s no need to doubt. But then, Luther scoffs, the only noise he’s made in a total of ten minutes. Bitter and demeaning, and entirely too like their father.

"Luther?" Ben asks, because he’s all about a democracy; because he secretly cares quite a lot about what Number One thinks. 

There is a burning within Diego, an anxiety that builds and mounts to a feeling of sickness. Luther is who matters most here. Number One could make or break the entire truth of it. But there are other reasons, ones which Diego will not admit to himself, that he needs so desperately for Luther to care. 

It's a weakness to want in such a way, to crave approval from a brother who steals it away from you, who hoards it and is always unwilling to share. A brother Diego loses more and more, every day of his life, to the manipulations of their father. 

Said brother sighs, head in his hands and elbows on the table in an uncharacteristic show of unrestraint. "Why are you doing this again?"

"What?"

"Lying, Diego. You keep  _ lying. _ First Five and now you lie about Klaus going missing? Finding Allison? It's not funny."

"I did-didn't, I-" 

"You didn't mean it?" Luther is rather suddenly at boiling point, close to yelling, powering on even as Allison attempts to shush him. 

"Like you didn't mean to slice my hand open with your knife? Like you didn't mean to pretend you were  _ dead  _ to get back at Allison for beating you in training? Like you didn't mean to have a grand conniption over Five running away from us? That's _ rich,  _ Diego, really."

None of that is true, it's not even what he had intended to say, but Luther stopped waiting for Diego a long time ago. Long before the reveal of the Kraken, long before the loss of Five. Maybe he'd been looking for an excuse to discredit Number Two and bump him down a rank all along. 

"I didn't  _ lie. _ " Diego bites out, hands shaking under the table. "'M not a liar just bec-c-because you d-don't understand it."

Luther's smile splits into something devious. Diego's been caught.

"Are you saying that  _ Dad  _ doesn't understand it? I  _ know  _ you wouldn't do that, Two." Beside Diego, Vanya fidgets. "Dad knows far more than any of us do, and what little he decides to share, he shares with _ me. _ " There is a threat there, poorly veiled, sniped across the table, over sweet donuts and empty cups. 

"You think he hasn't told me?" The world stops. "I'm Number One, I need to know these things about my team, Two." 

Luther laughs like they're talking about the weather, and a shot of raw fear spikes at Diego's gut. "The others may not, but that doesn't mean you can fool them into thinking that your paranoid delusions are true. They're smarter than that."

Allison sits back up in her seat, eyeing Luther over Klaus' lolling head. "Luther,  _ Jesus... _ "

Diego doesn't need to breathe, this is a fact, but he finds that he is unable to regardless. His chest is stuck, frozen between motions, locked into place, refusing to budge and let some air in. It wasn't supposed to  _ be  _ like this. Though, for the life of him, Diego can't remember how he ever imagined his moment unfolding in a way that would feel good. 

How blind he'd been in his hope, a fool to think that this would be okay. 

"No, Allison. It's about time someone said it and, quite frankly, I've held off for long enough." 

Diego's bitten and chipped fingernails dig into the fake leather that covers their booth. They pinch so hard that when the surface breaks, his fingertips are buried in foam, where he begins to tear a hollow in the seat, one each side of him. 

_ Dig a hole and put your feelings inside of it, _ Five says, but Diego doesn't much wish to think about the holes that Five has had to dig. 

Luther is on a roll, half-seated as he leans across the table, capturing the attention of each sibling; even Klaus, who has lifted his head from Allison's shoulder. 

"You don't see anything outside of yourself."

_ I see everything,  _ Diego wants to scream. _ I see the whole world, even when I don't want to.  _

"You are selfish and lazy, and what little skill you possessed in the first place has deteriorated so extremely that I sometimes think you're more of a hindrance on missions than you are a help." 

_ It's Dad, it's all Dad.  _

"You've been out of commission for  _ months,  _ when we needed you most, and then you just jump back in and expect us to believe that you found Klaus -- and Allison -- because you  _ followed them inside your head? _ Those are daydreams, Diego, retroactive fantasies that you've conjured up to make yourself think -- no,  _ believe,  _ that you are even  _ remotely  _ capable of being Number One."

His siblings do not say a word and only stare as Diego’s breathing stops and starts in rapid succession. Food discarded, diner empty, there is nothing but the sound of the night around them, the way the jukebox hums a familiar tune, fast-paced; something they had all once danced to.

Diego digs a hole, wishing he could sink into it. 

"Sure, Luther." He spits, kicking beneath the table as if it will give him more room to breathe. "You're r-rr-right."

"Diego," Ben places a hand on his shoulder as he pushes against Vanya. He needs to get out. Get away from here and how they all keep  _ looking  _ at him. "Please, stay."

Vanya yelps with the final shove he gives her, both clumsily slipping out of the booth. They land on their feet, but Diego is quick to move, ducking past Agnes and her empty tray as he makes for the door. 

" _ Aw,  _ come back, Twoots! I'll stop with the footsie."

"Diego,  _ please. _ "

"He's experiencing psychosis. Histrionics. Dad told me all about it, even showed me what Two writes. You can't beli-- "

_ "I heard a rumour  _ that you shut your-- " 

The rest is lost to him as the door rings shut. Outside, the night is cold, but the rain has stopped. When he breathes, the air that leaves his mouth clouds before his eyes. It gets stuck halfway up his throat, caught on a cry. 

He inhales and it's the last breath he takes before dissolving into a silent sob. Emptying his lungs of anything as he coughs the remnants of his chest out into the street. It hurts to be this way, to not have known that he ached so strongly for his brother's belief. For anyones. Diego feels disgusting and pathetic, like less of a person than he was before, if that's even possible. 

_ Forget him.  _

_ Easier said than done, idiot.  _

His spine curls painfully against the side of the building, where glass meets brick. Chipped and broken fingernails scrape against his stubbly scalp, and he wants to cry more, but he can't. There's no air left inside of him. He shakes, a violent thing, jaw clamping shut to prevent the chattering of his teeth. Bones locked, skin alight with gooseflesh, it is all too _ much.  _

Diego doesn't know why he thought that they would understand. He expects so much from those who also bend to the vicious whims of his father, as though they are exempt from the same suffering as him. As though they’re  _ above  _ it. 

Still, foolishly, he thought there to be some solidarity there. That perhaps fear of their joint caretaker would make them understand the situation in which Diego has been for as long as he can recall. 

His head aches even harder in the cold, pain punctuated by the bitter wind that floods the alley. For a moment, it feels as if he’s not entirely alone, but the disturbing sense of this is quashed entirely as the bell above the door rings, or it must have, because Allison is standing at his side. Close, as he prefers her. 

When their eyes finally meet, she's looking at him like he's a mess she's not sure she wants to touch. Diego fears that he might shatter if she does, for how everything burns, his eyes most of all.

The sob that threatens to burst forth is held back, restrained as best as he can manage while she takes him in with an inexplicable softness, the kind that is typically only reserved for Ben or, more recently, Klaus. 

"Stand up.” She finally says, less of a command and more of an assist, as she hooks her arms beneath his and eases him off the ground. Allison doesn’t say much else, content to brush off the dirt that has accumulated on his wet clothes and dirtied them beyond concealment. 

Though the rain has ceased, there is still a fine mist that floats in the air and clings to everything; the fibres on their clothing, their skin and hair. Allison looks him dead in the eye and there is something in them that he doesn’t understand. He’s always been able to read her, but now perhaps he is at a loss for something. It could be that she’s moved on inside, that college brochures on her desk are more than just cut-out fantasies. That the lines she recites in front of the mirror are no longer just for missions.

It could be that Diego has fallen behind.

“You’re fine.” She tells him with a level of insistence akin to that of her rumours, but lacking in key phrasing. “You’re  _ fine, _ Diego.”

He nods because he has to, because neither of them have ever had much choice, despite seeming to have the best of a bad lot out of the rest of their siblings. Being Number One is far too much pressure for a single person to handle; Number Four’s haunted by ghosts that no one else can see; Number Five is  _ gone; _ Number Six has beasts in his belly; Number Seven is  _ ordinary.  _

But Two and Three? What’s so bad about throwing knives, about holding the will of man on the curl of your tongue? 

Klaus isn’t the only one who hates his powers.

“You shouldn’t listen to Luther.” Allison says, wiping away his tears with her thumb and taking his hand in her own, holding tight in case he tries to let go. "He’s as scared as the rest of us.”

Diego scoffs at this, unaware that the truth of her statement will finally dawn upon him years from now, when they’ve all fled in their separate directions and Luther is the only one who stayed. But for now, he is rooted in his hatred, his longing for a brother that thinks so little of him. And that’s okay because, right now, not a single one of them knows any better. 

“C’mon,” Allison says, dragging him onto the street, beneath the lights once more. “Think you can  _ find  _ me a place that sells some cigarettes? Reds, preferably.”

-:-

_ “... Therefore he who w-wi-wishes to be a good pupil, besides performing his task well- well, m-mmust put forth every effort to resemble his m-master, and, if it were possible, to transform himself into his... master.” _

Never was it outright stated that Diego was the one who located Klaus and led his siblings to their drunken and drugged brother, but Father knows. He knows everything. Where to some, this act of reading on command, at dinner no less, may seem like his father’s slightly misplaced attempt and speech therapy, Diego knows far better. 

It is nothing short of blatant humiliation. 

_ “And w-when he feels that he has made some progress, it will be very p-rr--pr--- ”  _

_ Sound the word out, _ Five says with a bitter edge,  _ don’t give the old bastard the satisfaction. _

Diego prefers Mom’s methods, the act of visualising something to better wrap his tongue around it, but his desire to prove his father wrong works just fine too. 

_ “ -- pro-fit-able to observe diff-d-different m-mmen of the same calling and governing himself with that good juh-judgement which must ever be his guide, to go about selecting now this thing from w-w-one and that thing from another. And as the bee in the green meadows is ever wo- uh, wont to rob the flowers among the grass, so our C-Cour-- uh…  _ Cour-tier  _ must steal this grace from all who seem to possess it....” _

Out of the corner of his eye, Diego can see how Luther sits. How he carries himself with the posture of their father, desires that same ease in the space he fills. 

Loosening his hold of the heavy book and relaxing his shoulders, Diego tries too. Mom always tells him to unclench, to release his muscles from their perpetual tension and feel safe in a moment. This is not a moment to feel safe in --- for there are very little of them --- but it is one that he must ease himself into due to the sole fact that his father can  _ sense  _ fear.

_ "But before now often c-considered whe-wh-whence this grace springs, laying aside those men who have it by nature, I find one universal r-rule con-concerning it, which seems to me w-wworth m-more in this matter than any other in all things human that are d-done or s-ss-said: and that is to avoid affec-- affectation to the utterm-most and as it were a very sharp and danger-ous r-r-rock and, to use possibly a new w-w--word, to practise in everything a certain nonsh-cha- ''  _ He fumbles with this word, conscious of his father’s scrutiny, but thankful that the following is in Italian -- English has always been far harsher on his stutter. 

_ “...  _ sprezzatura _ that shall conceal de-design and show that what is done and said is done w-without effort and almost wi-wi-without thought.” _

That is the key, surely. That is how he must go on. To act as if he has not been impacted by what they think or feel of him. To stave off these extreme reactions to occurrences as though they are unable to touch him. 

_ You’re fine,  _ Allison had told him, beneath the mist that follows a downpour. He almost believes her. 

“You will continue your readings of Castiglione in private, Number Two.” Dad ends the lesson despite the fact that Diego is prepared to continue reading. His throat is dry from overuse and his eyes are tired due to the dim lighting, but he’d rather keep going. It’s preferable to the notion of sitting in his room alone, reading Renaissance pieces, awaiting his father’s call. 

His siblings gather their things, books being packed away and stationary swapped back and forth. Diego snags a pen from Klaus’ desk when he’s not looking -- his brother owes him after what he pulled the other night -- and pockets it. He’s lost too many from hiding them around his room in efforts to cease his late-night writing habits, and he’d hate to have to ask Mom for more. 

“We will reconvene at supper, children. Any tardiness will result in an empty stomach.” Dad regards Diego with an even, but significant, gaze before leaving the room, Pogo on his tale. “You are dismissed!”

The others quickly dissolve into talking about their plans for the brief hour they have been granted before dinner. There are nails to be painted and books to be finished, pieces to practise and push-ups to do. 

Diego does not kid himself into thinking that this time is ‘free’. He is always there, waiting, ready to be displaced at any given moment, whether physically or mentally. It’s becoming harder and harder to find rest nowadays, though he is feeling far better without the constant chill of the bath’s water in his bones. Still, he knows that any precious time is far more precious than his siblings could ever imagine and that what little of it there is will fly by in what feels like seconds. 

So it is that he decides to nap for the hour. He grabs his books, some by their spines -- though Ben would kill him for it -- and makes his way out of the room. He is last to leave bar Klaus, who is picking at a missing button on his blazer, which has grown far too short for his ever-lengthening arms.

“Diego, wait up!” He calls, following Diego out with the clumsy gait of a baby giraffe; Klaus doesn’t know what to do with all of this height and throws it around like he’s still a small child. 

Diego turns, books in hand and bed on the brain, to regard his brother. They haven’t spoken about it -- none of them have, to Diego’s knowledge -- but he highly doubts that Klaus would want to, as it would mean acknowledging something that he’ll likely never willingly admit. Though he’s allowed and encouraged Diego to partake in some of these things, so perhaps, in this way, he is the perfect candidate for Klaus’ confession.

Diego takes the stairs two at a time, eager to avoid this conversation. It would do no good; none of them believe him.

“I saw you for a second. That night.” Klaus says as the distance between them grows greater. “I thought you were dead.”

Diego halts in his ascent, back to Klaus and frozen mid-step. That makes no  _ sense _ \-- people don’t see him in the _ Void,  _ not since-- not since Dad’s friend, the woman (though he has decided without much thought on the matter not to question that, for the omniscience he associates with his father). 

Klaus can’t have seen him. Perhaps their talk in the diner planted an idea in his head and this is merely the drugs talking. So, Diego laughs a little to pass it off, to feign nonchalance and move away from this particular topic.

“I’m very muh-much alive, bro.”

He tries for a playful smirk, cast over the shoulder like this is some joke they share. But Klaus doesn’t appear to appreciate the sentiment and regards Diego with such a severe glare that he would think him sober, if not for the pills he saw Klaus pop in the bathroom this morning. 

What his brother says next chills him and feeds into the irrationality plaguing his inability to understand the  _ Void. _ It is inaccurate, but it  _ feels  _ right, and that is the thing that scares him most of all.

“Well, maybe you’re a little bit dead too.”

-:-

"Master Diego." He shakes awake, thick and hairy fingers brushing against his cheek to urge him into consciousness. 

It's Pogo, smiling down at him in the dark, looking tired and worn and very unlikely to ever say anything about it. 

"I'm very sorry to wake you, my boy, but your presence is required in your father's study at once."

Diego can barely process what is being said to him, trapped as he is in the fog of a deep sleep. 

"Wh-Wha-- did something happen?" He frets, pushing is quilt off with as little grace imaginable. 

"No, no, nothing's the matter. Your father would like to see you, that is all." With a helping hand, Pogo tugs Diego from his bed and bends on stiff bones to retrieve his slippers. "Wrap up, now."

Pogo pats at Diego's knee, urging him to cover his feet up. He then goes to the closet, opening the polished mahogany doors to retrieve his flannel robe before holding it out to Diego, who has to crouch slightly to work his arms in. 

There is no more hand holding, no hugs in the dark, but a certain kind of warmth with how Pogo guides him through the house. 

Diego no longer trips on the ends of his pajama bottoms, but he loses a slipper like Cinderella on his way up the stairs (like Klaus did, when he tried on Mom’s heels and tumbled his way down an entire flight only to need his jaw wired for a full six weeks). Pogo tuts, ambling back down and picking the slipper up with the end of his cane. He bends down once more to put it on Diego’s foot, which brings a flush to his face because he’s not  _ four  _ anymore. He’ll be fifteen a few months from now and here Pogo is, babying him, refusing to meet his eye. 

“Wh-W-- ”

“Off we go, Master Diego. Your father is waiting.”

They enter through the reception room, where Diego often has to wait before training sessions with Dad. Pogo slides the doors open and Diego stands, unaware that this is a big reveal of sorts until he hears voices,  _ other  _ voices, belonging to  _ other  _ men who are not his father. 

Pogo steps back, handing him over to Dad, who places a heavy hand on Diego's shoulder as he guides him to a chair in the middle of the room. 

There are five of them in total, of varying sizes, varying strengths. Diego takes them in as he would any enemy, absorbs every little detail from the fit of their suits to the way they sit. Which of them is armed, who has glasses. He hunches slightly in a move of defense, as to be so open and exposed to absolute strangers is a terrifying feeling, but Dad curls him back, flat to the spindles of the chair.

Diego's shaking, whether from the cold or from fear, it matters little. These men, they pick him apart with their eyes. They examine and analyse and will, no doubt, want to touch. His shoulder jerks in response to the thought, but his father only grips harder. 

He can feel where bruises will bloom. 

He can see this for what it is now. A  _ punishment. _

“Gentlemen.” His father says jovially, in a way that Diego has never known him to be. “I present to you: the answer.”

There is a short and quiet round of applause, mocking really, that rounds the room. It passes through all five guests, hands clapping together one way or another, full of crystal tumblers and fat cigars. The smoke burns Diego’s eyes. 

“Is this it, Reg?” A European man asks. Diego cannot pinpoint his accent but decides that there is no use in trying to do so. He does not wish to know these men or the things they have done, particularly if they keep such close company with his father. “I feel a tad underwhelmed.”

“Now, now, Igor, less of the snark.” The man, Igor, waves his hand at this, heavy with gold rings and scarred almost as much as Diego’s. Dad carries on as if uninterrupted.

“Number Two is one of my most promising subjects. You will find that his ability speaks for itself in terms of value.”

He is a fool to do so, but still Diego allows a swarm of butterflies to flap around in his chest. Dad is praising him, to his own peers, no less. Luther would have a fit if he found out that Diego was the one Dad chose to show off to his friends. 

“I expect to be appropriately compensated for this service. Though, any request that may be deemed detrimental to the state of Number Two will incur an  _ additional  _ charge.”

As soon as they are brought to life, the butterflies die, and all of Diego’s hope with them. 

The men nod in agreement, though Igor himself clearly remains skeptical. It is he who approaches first, slow and serpentine, as Dad holds Diego tight to the chair and allows his associate to examine. 

There is no touching, and Diego finds some relief in the likelihood that his Dad forbade it. If not out of care then out of fear that his precious subject could be harmed or altered in any way. 

“Number Two,” Igor begins, his breath stale and hot in Diego’s face. “There is only one thing I desire from you.”

Heart beating faster than his chest can contain, Diego pushes backwards, longing to be rid of his father’s hold. There is a whisper in his ear then, where Dad has bent down to meet him, quiet and ferocious, shaking him to his core. 

“ _ Behave,  _ child. You will do as you are told or you will be confined to the bath.”

Dad does not state the length of time in which Diego will be confined for, so he can’t risk it. He does as he’s told and when Igor passes him a photograph, Diego tries his best with it. 

There is a slump into darkness, the blindfold his father fastens holds him tight to the chair, poker straight and steel-spined. Diego catches a glimpse of the man he is supposed to find -- an old employee of Igor’s, a liar, a cheat, and a scoundrel -- and latches on as much as he can manage. 

What follows is as bloody as one of his father’s Caravaggios. It’s rotten and brutal and shakes him to his core. Diego watches as two men, hulking and faceless, beat the man in the picture to a bloody pulp. Streams of crimson pool with the water on the  _ Void’s  _ floor, the place is soaked with it. 

It can’t touch him, not really, but as the light finally leaves the man’s eyes, Diego feels it everywhere. His slippers  _ must _ be dirty, stained red, his pajamas will have to be thrown out. His robe may be salvageable, but he can never wear it again for the smell of death that permeates it. 

The men laugh, clap each other’s backs in congratulations, and Diego begs to be let out. He shouldn't do so -- embarrass his father by blubbering -- but he can’t help it. He is shaken then, jostled back into the reality of the study, where Dad removes his blindfold and Igor’s face is still there, waiting. 

“Well, boy?” Igor says, grin smug and sneering. Diego can feel how his father bristles, but looks to him still to see if he has permission to answer. After a nod, Diego does, register low to have better control of his voice like Mom said, words slow. 

“I found him.” Diego doesn’t look at Igor when he says this, but at the photo in his hands, worrying the edges of it. Dad’s hand still squeezes and the remaining men hold their breath, but Diego must take his time, particularly when such a thing is so hard to say.

“You’re keeping him at-- at the d-docks. On a boat.”

Igor hums, reserved still. “Which dock?”

“W-W-West 79th Street.” 

“Which boat?”

Diego swallows, wishing Dad would intervene. But he won’t; he’s content to observe. “It’s r-r-red. Says  _ Six Feet Under _ on the back.”

“Huh,” Igor smiles, all yellow stained teeth. He lights up another cigar and doesn’t think much of Diego when he exhales right in his face. He holds his breath, determined not to make a bad impression and embarrass his father further by coughing. 

“How’s he doing, my dear employee?”

“Your m-men killed him.” Diego says flatly. “Slit his- his throat.”

Dad seems to finally find his voice, interrupting before Diego can say anything further. Not that he had planned on it. He’d very much prefer to be left alone now, away from the curiosity of these men and their vengeful whims.

“What is the meaning of this, Igor?”

Igor shrugs, cigar cinched between stained fingers. “Your boy passed my test, Reg. Now he can help me find people I  _ really  _ can’t manage to locate.”

“Very well.” Dad says. Diego would like to think that it’s over, that Igor was the worst of it, but he knows well enough now that this never ends. That seeing a man’s throat slit in the _ Void  _ was only the beginning.

The next of the men, portly and sour, steps up for his turn. To Diego, he presents a single pearl earring, dropped into the palm of his hand as though it is a mere crumb. It rolls around there, catches in the divots of his scars and cools his skin as if it were a small chip of ice. He shakes again, enclosing the earring in a tight fist for fear of losing it. 

Diego exhales sharply, his nose raw with clotting blood and his head light, as his father presses a palm flat to his forehead once more and fastens the blindfold around his eyes. 

It is no soft thing this time around, but an abrupt drop that swooshes in his stomach rather violently. Forever a pity it is that he doesn’t know whether the words he speaks can always be heard in the real world, for Diego releases a rather embarrassing whimper at the motion. 

He opens his fist and the pearl is gone. Immediately, he knows that this is not a now memory, but one of the past, for the shock of gold that catches his eye, a smattering of colour in the _ Void’s  _ black.

There it is -- the bear with the yellow ribbon tied loosely around its neck. A girl, chewing on its paw, tears wetting her red cheeks as a man knocks her mother over onto the floor with the back of his hand. The man who is sitting directly across from him, grinning, eyeing Diego up like he’s a new toy that each of them can take it in turns to play with. It is in that very moment that Diego realises.

This isn’t a punishment that his father has disguised as a parlour trick. 

This is an  _ advertisement.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw:  
> \- domestic abuse  
> \- predatory behaviour  
> \- panic attack  
> \- gore
> 
> your comments on the last chapter made me so emotional and lifted my spirits a great deal. the next chapter is partially written and won't take as long bc my hours at work have lightened following christmas. we're approaching the kids' later teen years now, so things are about to start progressing a great deal plot-wise. i'm p emotional about it ://
> 
> anyways, thank you again for everything!! oh also, the chapter title is from taylor swift's song 'willow' c: happy new year!


	16. now we are six.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are things you don't touch in this house, Diego knows. Things that don't bear thinking about. His siblings can't be blamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a year has passed since five left them. this chapter takes them through summer and autumn, closing in winter. the kids are fifteen at the beginning, by the end of it they are sixteen. 
> 
> this one made me cry, so i started out with some good, clean fun to lighten the mood before allowing it to crash below zero. 
> 
> triggers in end notes as always, though i will say there is some accidental self-harm after the second -:- break so please be mindful of that!

_"When I was Two,_   
_I was nearly new._   
_When I was Three_   
_I was hardly me._   
_When I was Four,_   
_I was not much more._   
_When I was Five, I was just alive._   
_But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever,_   
_So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.”_

**― A.A. Milne, Now We Are Six**

* * *

Though none of them know it at the time, this mission is the one after which all will change. 

Five had left them early on, when the Academy was in its infancy, new to the world and utterly fascinating. They were a unit, but an uncertain one, unused to working as a team under such high stakes. It’s been over a year since then, and while the fascination remains, and the fans grow in their masses, the children of the Academy are older now, and each loss bleeds that bit more.

Fifteen is a critical age, it would seem, in which all kinds of things begin to occur to a person. To some of them it means freedom, to others it further cements their responsibility to the world. 

To Diego, it only strengthens his desire to stop feeling the way he does.

He’s strayed from his original purpose, or what he thought it to be. Knives and trajectory are of little concern to Dad, who now passes envelopes between his associates and tucks them into the inside of his jacket, into the locked drawers on his desk. 

Not for the first time, Diego wonders how much his time is worth. 

_Diddly squat,_ Five says.

It’s not easily maintained, this front of nonchalance. It often hurts, to keep so many things inside, but the _Void_ is infinite, a place where there is room for such things. He knows there are feelings that mustn’t be displayed, that his siblings too have to bury deep down for fear of the consequence of their emergence. 

Allison has retreated further into her room, the world she has built there. One of fantasy and mirrors, masks and costumes and stacks of paper that are tied together with a string. She climbs out her bedroom window and meets men in cafés, she reads over contracts and lets them pay for her peppermint tea. She smiles and charms, and though her face is entirely bare, she wears a mask nonetheless. 

In these actions, Diego knows she is building herself a future. 

Klaus does not think of such things, only freedom, however temporary. He’s poised, half in flight, ready to leap and escape into the night. He talks of his escapades with an air of superiority, with a sense of maturity that he believes his siblings lack. He shares his cigarettes and his various medicines, he offers other vices which Diego refuses to touch, but a sip of whiskey never hurt. Which says a lot, because most things do. Klaus knows that as much as anyone; Ben too. 

Ben, who keeps himself hidden in the crevices of their home. Diego only knows this because these are places he tries to hide too. Ben draws mostly, or reads books that the others do not touch. Sometimes, he’ll read to Diego, or even to Mom, and these moments are Diego’s favourite because for a fraction of time it feels as though they are elsewhere, in another life, where tales of an academy for superpowered children are mere fiction. Where they are _happy._

Vanya is an unknown factor, and often Diego finds himself hoping that her life will remain ordinary, for how awful it is to be extraordinary. He’d like for her to travel maybe, because she’s seen so little of the world, and perhaps even go to college, where she can make friends and play music for them; which they will love and praise. He tells her this, that the world is bigger than the walls they live between and that she’ll like it far better out there when it’s time for her to go. 

Sometimes he worries that she might feel he _wants_ her gone because he is rougher around the edges now, jaded and impatient, but the truth of it is that he’s only ever wanted for Seven to feel as if she belongs.

Five will be back soon; he’s always been better at talking to her about things like that.

Of course it is Luther who wants to stay. They owe it to the world, apparently, to remain in the Umbrella Academy, under the thumb of their father. Training to death, until their voices leave them, their stomachs ache, their dreams bleed into reality. 

Luther has no idea, not a single clue, and a rather small and hidden part of Diego wishes that he may never know; that he be spared. But he’d never speak such a thing into existence, particularly with how Number One’s been acting towards him since that night at the diner.

“How kind of you to join us.” Luther bites, despite the fact that he and Klaus are only thirty seconds late. 

They had driven together, the pair of them, the other three taking Hermes with Ben behind the wheel. Klaus, of course, had called shotgun, purely for the fact that he is the only one of their number who can’t drive and refuses to learn how for the sobriety it requires. So, he’d spent the journey pointing out funny looking people on the sidewalk and begging Diego to pull over for snacks.

That’s why they’re late -- _not_ for Diego’s lack of ability. He had known _exactly_ where to go, he always does.

“Our pleasure.” Klaus responds with a mock bow as he dips into the studio, earning a smile from all but Luther. 

People duck and dive around them, rambling into headsets and police radios; Klaus looks delighted by the sight of them. “Whose bones must we break today, Mighty _One?_ Is it Valax Valax? Or, dare I say… _Gustave_ himself?”

“Cut it out, Four.” Luther says, fixing the zipper on Allison’s suit. “Valax Valax is dead, Gustave Eiffel too.” 

Then: “Two made sure of that.”

It’s rich, really, that they all think themselves above killing. Diego has done and seen far worse, but his siblings are no saints. Luther can snap necks with the flick of a wrist, Allison has the ability to kill with her words alone, Ben with the beasts that fly from his stomach and rip dozens of people to shreds at once. Klaus _talks_ to the dead, to the ghosts that surround all of them for the sheer volume of people they have killed.

But, no, _Diego_ is the one with the problem. 

“Someone had to.”

Luther scoffs and fixes his gaze on the sunlight that shines through the open studio doors. It’s late in the evening, they’re missing dinner for this, despite Mom having made it all. 

“You jump to such extremes, Two. Perhaps try for a more _rational_ approach this time around, hm?” 

Diego could bite back in a similar vein, snipe at Luther with expletives that would embarrass the Academy, but it would do nothing except prove his brother right. 

“Do you even know w-why w-w-we’re here? Quit shit-talking me and may-maybe try _leading._ ”

“No.” Allison intercepts any further argument, folding a compact mirror into the lining of her suit. “He doesn’t know and neither do you. So why don’t you both shut up, because Lupo over there looks like he’d love to explain it.”

“You kids drive here?” Inspector Lupo approaches from inside the television studio, cigarette in his mouth and ready to be lit. Diego has to kick Klaus so he won’t ask for one -- they’re already in enough trouble for driving without actual licenses, and while that is easily overlooked for the work they do to stop criminals, underage smoking can hardly be seen as necessary to a mission. 

“I’ll take that as a _yes._ Suppose I’ll have to have words with your father again. You been briefed by anyone or do I gotta do it?” When Lupo exhales, it’s in the opposite direction to where they’re all standing. Diego’s always liked him.

“No, Sir.” Luther responds, quick and eager to please. “But we’re prepared for whatever it may be.”

Lupo chuckles, a hoarse thing, and taps some ash onto the pavement. “Sure you are, kid. But look, this is how it is: some whackjob in there who calls himself the Murder Magician has taken Lucifer Clarke and his entire studio audience hostage. I’d call it a publicity stunt, but my higher-ups aren’t happy. They also aren’t happy that he’s spouting about how he was the one to kidnap The Rumour.”

At this, Allison’s jaw clenches almost imperceptibly. Ben is quick to grasp her hand in his own and squeeze tight. She doesn’t reject the gesture like Diego had expected her to. 

“That was Doctor Terminal…” Diego can empathise only slightly with how Luther is trying to put up a boundary between the Umbrella Academy and the police force. But they all know who took Allison, even if the cops would rather talk of cannibalistic immortal remains hush hush. 

“He’s full of it.” Diego tells Lupo, because it is a fact. “Guy is just saying that bec-cause Sir R-R-- _Hargreeves_ never put out a full statement.” 

“Be that as it may, Kraken,” Something in Diego swells with pride at the use of his admittedly silly nickname. Lupo never calls Luther _Spaceboy._ “The man’s demanding a million dollars before the next commercial break or he’ll, and I quote, ‘dismember Lucifer Clark with a saw on national television and open fire on the audience’.”

Next to him, Klaus hums. “Rather creative of the chap.”

“You can say that again, kid.”

“We’ll take over from here, Inspector.” Luther says, like they’re the authority here and Lupo is a mere civilian. “Keep your men posted outside in case this Murder Magician tries to escape, and above all -- ” Lupo sighs heavily. “Don’t panic.”

The inspector gives them a brief salute, accustomed now to the fact that they’re never going to listen. Dad had always drilled into them that the police force isn’t worth their time. It’s hard to dispute when ninety-nine percent of the time all they do is form perimetres and wait for the Umbrella Academy to take action, but Diego can’t complain much; it gives him something to do. 

Their entrance is easy, primarily because the cops have sealed everything off and this deranged villain clearly wants their attention. Luther leads and Diego could push in front, but the lack of effort is worth it for the one-liners that his brother fails at delivering.

They emerge onto the set of a talk show, seventies furniture and fake windows, bright lights and frozen cameramen; an audience in fear for their lives and Luther says:

“Now put that saw down before you hurt yourself-- ”

Klaus cackles and Diego sighs, “You’re r-r-ridiculous, Space…”

The Murder Magician, a scrawny man in his late forties with a receding hairline and a pathetic attempt at a costume, lights up like all his wildest dreams have come to fruition. In his hands he holds a saw, brandishing it at Lucifer Clark who lunges to cower beneath the desk at their entrance.

“The Umbrella Academy! Welcome to my show, Spaceboy, Kraken. Hello again, _Rumour._ ”

Diego’s certain that a whole speech had been planned by the villain. Likely a dramatic and daring monologue with twists and turns about his journey, claiming credit for managing to kidnap Number Three, and how he came to be here, on the Lucifer Clark show, in the presence of the renowned Umbrella Academy. 

Luther adheres to this format constantly; it’s a tired one. The man is armed with nothing but a saw and while his assistant has a military rifle slung over her shoulder, he trusts Allison to deal with that in a relatively fast and efficient manner. 

So it is that Diego walks across the stage, brisk and with clear intent, past camera men and techs, past Lucifer Clark’s desk, towards the Murder Magician. The man braces himself with a wide and leering smile, because Diego is a child still and likely doesn’t pose a particularly intimidating figure despite the numerous knives strapped to his person. 

_Little Diego,_ Five says, grating as ever. _So unassuming._

_"_ Shut up."

Instead of using them, though, he ducks beneath the swift arc of the saw as it comes his way, crouching low only to rise again as the coast is clear.

_On your left!_

He should have expected another hit, and it might have landed if his brother hadn’t warned him.

“Thanks, Five.” Diego smiles as he halts the Murder Magician’s movement at his second swipe. 

The teeth of the saw are mere inches from Diego’s neck, and while it is a difficult movement to hold, it has nothing on the Horror’s tentacles. Diego’s had plenty of practise with halting projectiles before they can meet their mark, it’s just not something he readily advertises. At this, the audience gasps from behind their seats, one even going as far as to whoop and applause, but it’s not over yet. 

It’s over when Diego swings his right hand towards the Murder Magician and punches him in the face.

All blood and teeth, the man drops to the floor like a bag of rocks and the audience erupts into applause. Diego shakes his fist out, ignoring the bright lights and how the cameras pan his way. A shrill scream spares him the attention; there’s still one more criminal left to deal with.

A glance to the right shows the assistant climbing a rig above the stage, her rifle pointed towards Ben, who is indisputably the most feared of their group. It would be laughable under normal circumstances (normal being any circumstance under which a gun is not being pointed at Ben), but Diego would very much like for this to be over now for the lack of challenge in it. For the exposure they’re receiving as a group -- as an individual, it’s something he’s never been too keen on. 

He breathes a sigh of relief once all of the cameras are pointed elsewhere, on anyone but him. Nothing to see here -- the Murder Magician has conked out.

If he could, he’d circumvent the drama and get right down to breaking bones and fighting _actual_ crime, but this is as good a way as any to let off some steam when the most social interaction you have outside your siblings is with billionaires in their sixties who pay for you to find their cheating wives.

“I wasn’t even going to _do_ anything.” Ben says, clearly miffed at being singled out. 

The zipper on his suit has yet to be undone, but this woman seems to think that it will take the Horror to truly defeat her. _Hilarious._ To this, Klaus offers Ben a consoling pat on the back before realising that he is directly in the line of fire, hands raised in surrender, and therefore not a good person to be standing beside. 

Allison, aware of her audience and therefore a great sight more pleasant, waves her hand in exaggerated exasperation. 

“Oh, _honey…_ ” She says as the woman whimpers, gun clattering in her shaking grasp, liable to fire even by accident. Allison knows her angles, this much is clear, and the cameras follow her line along the stage like a magnet, stopping finally when she comes to stand beside Ben. 

“ _I heard a rumour…_ ” Allison smirks and the audience smile along like they’re in on the joke. Diego ignores them, standing by his sister to observe, Luther following him like an oversized shadow. 

“What did you do that for?” He whispers viciously into Diego’s ear. “I had him under control.”

“I punched him. Does M-Mom need to check your eyesight?”

“You breached protocol.” 

“Well, I didn’t k-kill him. _Happy?_ ”

“Whatever, Two.”

Allison, undeterred by their muttering, repeats for emphasis. “ _I heard a rumour…_ ” The audience are on the edge of their seats -- though the gun could still be fired at any moment -- for the calm that The Rumour’s signature phrase has instilled in them. 

“... that your gun was fake.”

The assistant’s eyes glaze a milky white as she looks at the gun, betrayal painted on her made-up face. 

“That bastard!” She yells. “The gun is a dud.”

Allison beams back, entirely in her element. “Uh _huh._ I _also_ heard that the lighting rig in this place was a _total_ rush job.” Off to the side, Klaus puts a hand to his mouth as if this is the most scandalous news he’s heard all day. 

“I heard that too! Can you _believe?_ ”

Diego snorts at this, moving to stand in front of the pair in case the woman accidentally sets the rifle off. 

“Not the time, guys.” Ben shushes them so Allison can continue.

“ _Any_ kind of weight and it’ll give.”

And it does. A fragile new development in Allison’s power, tentative at best and sparingly used, causes the rig to dismantle before their eyes, nuts and bolts raining down upon the stage (Diego deflects them to the best of his ability) followed by the heavy drop of the assistant, who lands with an audible crunch on the studio floor. 

“So much for no killing.” Klaus sighs, kicking at her limp body, though he’d done exactly nothing to help in any of this. 

And it’d be fine if they weren’t live on national television, broadcasting directly into living rooms all over the country. But they are and this doesn’t look good. 

Allison has a future for herself, a clear path that none of them can quite see, but she’s had her sights set on for a while now. She saved these people, yes, and did her duty as a hero, but nobody wants to see _that._ And though each of them has killed behind closed doors, there is an inexplicable kind of shame to this; to five teenagers standing on the set of a talk show with a mangled corpse at their feet. 

There’s no guarantee in rumouring the crowd, because who could say that the people at home would fall under the same spell? So Diego drops into a crouch, fingers pressing against the women’s blatantly broken neck, in a half-hearted mimicry of checking for a pulse.

“Nope.” He says, casual as ever. “She’s alive.”

_Nicely done, Two._

Though there is no applause, a collective kind of relief passes through the studio. Ben seems to catch his drift, even if the Horror is likely stirring at this fresh spill of blood that’s pooling around the crown of the corpse’s head. 

“Yeah, she actually looks fine.”

Then Luther, which should make Diego mad for how forgiving he is of Allison’s misdeeds, but this is about the team, not his brother’s personal feelings on his mental state.

“Good job, Rumour. You handled that brilliantly.”

Allison takes a moment to collect herself before responding with a wide grin and a gracious curtsy; mocking, really, but effective in lightening the mood. The crowd go wild for her, as expected, while Diego makes his way back over to the Murder Magician, tying him by his wrists with the standard rope that they all carry for incapacitating criminals before handing him over to the cops who are standing behind the scenes.

From beneath the desk, Lucifer Clark emerges, pale and waxy, suit crinkled, he does his best at a showbiz smile. But it is of no use -- the crowd is transfixed by Allison and her heroics, her beauty; then Klaus, who is stood atop the guest sofa, looking directly into one of the cameras.

“Well,” He begins, arms cast wide as his smirk, the true mischief of it hidden behind the cover of his domino mask. “That’s all for now, folks! But in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight!”

  
  
  
  


Dad never shows. _He’s busier with more important things,_ Luther says, which is the last thing Diego wants to hear. Dad being busy means _he’ll_ be busy, means no time to get his reading done before lessons tomorrow morning. Which in turn will have Pogo disappointed in him and give Luther even more reason to think him lazy and deluded. 

But it’s of no matter. It’s beyond Diego’s control. Everything is.

There were pictures taken a while ago, outside the studio, but still Allison is talking to reporters as they fawn all over her, asking how she managed to make the rig collapse without killing the assistant, and if the Murder Magician’s claims are true. 

“I wasn’t kidnapped last year, _please._ ” Allison dismisses with a laugh. “It was simply a training exercise.”

Behind the reporters, a group of paramedics do their best to discreetly remove the body bag from the scene.

Allison’s smile does not falter. 

“It was fun for a while.” Klaus is sitting on the blacktop, picking at small stones with his painted and chipped fingernails. “But I’m hungry. Can we go?”

“We have to wait for Allison.” Luther remains authoritative, though he’s clearly distracted by Allison taking questions alone when typically that is only ever done as a team. 

Klaus whines, fists falling heavy on his lap like he’s a toddler all over again. “But we have two cars. C’mon Benny, aren’t you _hungry?_ We missed dinner.”

Ben wants to relent, it’s obvious, but he’s never liked letting Luther down. His answer falls suitably in the middle. 

“We could get drive thru?” They’ve never had it before, but Diego’s been eager to try now that he’s allowed behind the wheel of a car. Abhijat never liked to stop for food. “You hang back for Allison and by the time she’s done the three of us will be back at the house. Dad won’t even know.”

“We’ll get you a _milkshake_.” Klaus teases, tickling at Luther’s calves. 

“Fine.” He crosses his arms in attempts to look firm. Diego snorts. “Make it strawberry.”

Klaus scrambles to his feet, using both he and Ben as leverage. He doesn’t bother asking Diego to come, because it’s a given that he will. And though Diego is well aware that Dad will want him back in the house as soon as possible, particularly if he’s been in meetings all day, it’s been months of work for these repulsive men; he deserves a little break. 

“Strawberry for my strawberry, gotcha! We’ll see you and Allie at home.”

Luther rolls his eyes and turns away, the flush of his cheeks proving Klaus’ point. 

_“Don’t_ be late!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Klaus calls over his shoulder before leading Ben and Diego back to the car, an arm hooked around each of their necks. “So, have either of you got any money?”

“Klaus!”

“Kidding, kidding. I brought some of my allowance.” A lie. Diego saw Klaus spend his allowance on a fifth of bourbon last month. “You two owe me big time.”  
  


“Whatever.” Diego dismisses, and Ben appears to share the sentiment. “We’re not just going to the d-dr-drive thru, right?”

Klaus swings himself between them, though their heights are unevenly matched, and launches himself towards the back of the car. Relinquishing shotgun, he is content to lay in the backseat, sprawled, as Diego takes it upon himself to drive. 

“Nah, I’m thinking the bowling alley. They have fries there, right?”

Ben nods. “And pizza.”

“Pizza! You better drive fast, Twoots, because I’ve got donuts on my mind now too. A luscious one -- I think I deserve it after the week I’ve had.”

“ _Uh huh_.” Diego rolls his eyes, starting the car. “Put your d-damn seatbelt on. I c-can’t wh-whoo-- kick your asses at bowling if you’re dead.”

-:-

Winter is well on its way once more. Diego does not welcome it, but allows the clouds of fog and sheets of frost to trap him inside the house, with his personal missions and neverending _meetings._

Without his usual training as an outlet, Mom is a reprieve in all of this. The sweet escape of the laundry room, salvation in the form of fresh linen and clean clothes, not a mark of dirt or blood present. Mom is good at that -- making things clean. When she sees something wrong, it is easily fixed, whisked away with a few words and a gentle smile. 

"Whatever's the matter, darling?"

She flicks a crisp white sheet in his direction and he catches his corners before they can hit the ground. Together, they fold the sheet in half, flip it, and meet in the middle. 

"Dad w-won't let me go on the next m-mm-m-- "

"Picture the word, Diego. There is nobody to rush you here."

"The m-mission," He tells her, grabbing a pillowcase to busy himself with. "He wants me to help those-- those men instead. I hate them. I'd r-r-rather go with the others."

"Nonsense, how would you feel if your father refused to come and meet your friends?"

"I don't _have_ any friends."

"Are we not friends?"

Are they not? Luther and Allison have had one another from the beginning, an unimpeachable front that Diego sits uncomfortably between. Klaus and Ben, drawn together and inextricably tangled in a series of knots. Vanya and Five, made up of whispers in the night and sugary sweet sandwiches, of soft music and sharp jokes that only the two ever seemed to understand. Diego's never had that, or at least if he did, it was fleeting, a brief instance of belonging wholly to something before it was swiped from beneath his feet for other, allegedly more important, things. 

He lives for these occasions with his siblings, where it feels like they belong to one another entirely, where they live in a world that is their own and remains untouched by any outsiders; but the truth of the matter is that from the very moment of her arrival, it's always been Diego and Mom. 

"You're my mom." He says slowly, though he thinks privately that she must be his best friend.

"And how lucky I am to be her."

Mom smiles at him and then mostly to herself. It's easy to talk to her, like this, when it feels as if the world is made up of only the two of them and that in this world, he is completely safe, if only for a short while. 

"You mustn't think you are alone, Diego." She says after a time, dropping her hand-sewn sachets of lavender into each of the pillowcases. "Your siblings love you very much, as do we all. And your father, he has great intentions for you. Great hopes."

Something in the pride with which she utters those last words sicken him. Dad's great intentions and hopes have impressed themselves upon Diego with nothing but a blatant and absolute disregard. 

While he has not been in a room with _all_ of those men since the night Pogo roused him from his bed, Diego has met them individually, watched hours of surveillance footage, studied photographs and mugshots, been crushed beneath their demands and exhausted to the point of collapse. And for what? So they can satisfy their violent whims and cling once again to the gross levels of power that they possess? He wants no part in it. 

He doesn't want to talk about that with his mother, because such things will taint this snippet of time with her. So rare in its occurrence, more and more lately. 

"I think that may-maybe Vanya is my friend." He says instead, liking the thought that he will be there for her as a fill-in until Five inevitably returns. "We like the same kind of music. Even joked about forming a band."

Each word he speaks is slow and deliberate. There is such a weight of effort to stringing a simple sentence together but Mom never interrupts. She waits however long it takes, and each time he completes a sentence without a single falter, she beams at him as though he might have hung the moon. 

"I would be your number one fan." She says, mouth parting in a smile. Diego doubts that the kind of music he and Vanya enjoy would be suited to Mom's tastes, but he still flushes with the warmth of her gesture. 

"B-B-Ben is my friend too." Ben has always been his friend, an absolute constant, despite his occasional misunderstandings and tendency to gravitate towards others. "Kl-Klaus and him."

"Oh, I'm _well_ aware, darling. You three can be quiet the troublemakers." Mom tuts fondly and hands him a pile of freshly laundered towels to fold. 

Around him, she bustles and busies herself with various tasks, but somehow, he remains her sole focus. In an absent sort of way, he is aware that these actions are automatic to her, that it is easier for her to devote her full attention to him because there is some software in her brain that allows for such things with little to no consideration. Still, it feels special. _He_ feels special. Because she is listening to every word, no matter how long it takes for him to get them out. 

"W-We don-- we don't mean to be. I swear."

"Oh, hush." Mom swats in his direction with a clean dishcloth and shares with him a playful smile. "It keeps me on my toes."

“Mom?” He says after a short and comfortable silence. She perks up once more, ready and waiting. 

“Yes, darling?”

It feels silly to ask, because surely he should know. They should all know, and yet the word is something so rarely spoken in the Hargreeves household. But Mom will have the answer-- she knows everything. 

“How d-do--do you know if someone loves you?”

Mom doesn’t respond immediately and for a moment he worries that she hasn’t heard him. But then, with a curious frown and a gentle smile, she drops the towel she had been folding and reaches for him, arms wrapping around him in a gentle embrace. 

He’s tall enough now that his chin hooks over her shoulder, her blonde curls tickling at his nose. When she laughs, he feels it vibrate in his chest. It makes him want to cry. 

“How do you know that I love you?” Is what she asks, pulling back to hold him at arm’s length, thumb brushing at a stray tear that managed to slip away. 

He shrugs. It’s an impossible question. “I just do.”

But it doesn’t feel like enough, not when she’s given him everything. He has no clue, really, what a Mom is supposed to be like, for the _Void_ is not a good gauge for pure things, but he knows that his is good. That she is often all he needs, his only light in such a bleak place. A bleak life. That he loves her, unconditionally, that he’d do anything to keep her safe, because she’s kept him safe, more than she could possibly know. 

“You show me all the time.” He says after a beat, awkward and unable to meet her eyes. “Wh-Whe-- When you-- you do nice things for me. And you listen.”

“Oh, darling.” She tilts his chin up and when he meets her eyes, he knows she’s real. 

“You always have such interesting things to say. Talking to you is often the highlight of my day.” 

Allison listens to him sometimes, when it’s just the two of them. Not like Mom. Not to fix -- because Allison knows that there are some things she cannot fix -- but perhaps for her own bewildering and ever changing sense of morality.

For her guilt.

“I think… maybe Al-A-Allison loves me.” Yes, that sounds right. “But I d-don’t know that she likes me.”

“That’s okay. We don’t need to like each other all of the time, so long as there is love between us.”

Then, his mouth running off without him, without his express permission or control:

“W-What if I don’t love Luther?”

Mom’s head hangs a little to the left, a peculiar tilt. She looks at him for a moment as though she can’t quite process what he’s saying. Diego thinks of repeating it, but the thought of doing so makes him feel sick. 

He’s spared having to when she speaks, impossibly softer than before. 

“Perhaps, someday, when you are both given the chance to get to know one another you will realise that there is love between you and that it is _plentiful._ ”

Diego nods, as it’s all that he can manage -- words lodged in his throat, no longer fit to tumble from between his lips at the sight of his Mom but stuck, unwilling to reveal themselves. He feels rotten for saying such a thing, but even worse with the knowledge that Luther would not hesitate in saying it himself. 

Taking this as sufficient understanding, Mom simply hums as though all is right again, returning to her duties amongst the garments of clothing and bedsheets. 

Deep inside Diego, as he folds the pillowcases and towel and orders them into neat piles, he realises that there has been a kind of damage done, the kind he feels might be irreparable. 

It’s nice to think of love and to want it, to believe that perhaps it could be returned, but there is a stark reality impeding this that Mom likely will not ever comprehend. For however much Diego tries to love his siblings or they try to love him in return, there will always be a boundary in place, one dictated by the secrets they keep from one another; the suffering they all share but will not disclose. 

To want is a dark and dangerous thing, he has learned. His want for approval and validation, to be _more_ than extraordinary and seen as worthy in the eyes of his father has done nothing but pain him. This naivety has made everyday life into a regular hell, into something he struggles to share with his siblings, who will hardly take the time to listen to him, let alone actually believe him when the words choke their way out of his mouth. 

But if he tries his best to think in the way that his mother does -- that there is an abundance of love between all of them, that it shows itself in the smallest of moments that cannot be touched by anything bad -- it’s easier. It cuts him less. 

“Why don’t you run along and play with your siblings until supper is ready?”

Play: _train, fight, brawl, hurt, maim._

“It’s o-k-kay. I’m happy here w--with you.”

It’s better to focus on these smaller things, Diego thinks, than the larger truths that will always prevail.

It is safer. 

-:-

Ben's bedroom floor is their home for the evening. He is doing some crosshatch on a sketch from earlier while Diego sharpens his knives. Not the most creative of pastimes, but it has to be done, and the monotony of the action is rather relaxing, as is Ben's presence. 

His brother stops for a moment, fine line pen frozen mid air. He looks right at Diego in the dark, glum and anxious, tugging at the hem of his pajamas self-consciously, like he thinks Diego can see the parts of him that open up to the ugliest of worlds. Diego can, sometimes. Unwillingly. He'd never tell Ben, though. 

"I'm sorry I said that about you." Diego's about to ask what Ben said, but he's spared having to. 

"About you not understanding what it's like... to hate your powers."

Diego laughs, a front. "I don't hate m-my powers."

_"Yes_ you do.” Ben is firm, far more than usual. The truth of what he says startles Diego, leaving him at a loss for words. He’s never admitted such a thing, he’s not brave enough.

“And I know you hate Dad, for what he makes you do. Whatever it is. I know he hurts you, Diego.”

“He d-d-doesn’t.”

“I know what that looks like on a person."

_Blood,_ Diego thinks. Bloody noses and soaking wet pajamas in the night. It says a lot about their upbringing that it's likely everyone has seen him in such a state at this point, but only two of them have ever found the need to comment on it. 

There are things you don't touch in this house, Diego knows. Things that don't bear thinking about. His siblings can't be blamed. 

"And I may not know how exactly you found Klaus, but... well, I know that you _did._ And it _hurt_ you. I think a lot of things hurt you." 

It’s not always a nice feeling, to be seen. By cameras, by your own brother. 

Diego fumbles for anything to hold onto, scrambles with the panic that washes over him akin to an ice cold wave. What he reaches for is nothing soft, nothing tender. It is a knife. 

The blade cuts his palms and fingers where he squeezes and Ben -- patient, kind, _loving_ \-- pries it from his hand. 

"B-Beh-- Ben, I can't. I... I don't know how."

"That's okay. You don't ever have to tell me, alright? I just..." He pauses, a sigh in the dark. "I just want you to know that I believe you. I always will."

Ben grasps him then, holds him tightly. It occurs to Diego that while he has never shied away from touching Ben as the others sometimes do, he had thought that his brother might be afraid to touch him. 

He’s not, curling against Diego like they are kids again. Ben breathes, slow and deep, and Diego does his best to match it, tears wetting his brother’s pajamas. Ben knows this hurt better than anyone. He knows what it feels to belong to another place, to be stuck there. Diego suddenly wishes quite desperately that he could alleviate some of that weight from him. 

He cannot. Neither of them will ever be fit to, stuck as they are. Elsewhere. Here. Every place they touch. There is a portal in Ben’s stomach; Diego wonders if it looks the same as the inside of his own head. 

Sitting up straighter then, he curls his bloodied hand into his sleeve to spare any further staining. Diego’s other arm lifts to wrap around his brother, to keep him here in this moment where everything feels good, to tickle under the collar of his pajama shirt and lighten the moment even slightly.

Ben laughs, a sound he will forever remember.

“I believe you too.”

These are the little ways of showing love. This is safe.

(He thought that at the time, but soon he will know better.)

-:-

It is one of those rare nights that he is allowed to dream. 

But it is nothing out of the ordinary, no. To the point where Diego thinks once that he might be awake. This parody of the house is cold at such an hour, the few breaths he takes fogging before his eyes. There is a blackness to the shadows, deeper than Diego has ever seen, and when the light of the lamps bounce off it, it emits a glow that is almost otherworldly. 

In the dark, he hears a whimper. The faint echo of a sound that resonates, that bounces around between each room and winds its way into Diego's ear. 

_Help them,_ Five says and Diego doesn’t need to be told twice. 

His bare feet pound against the tile, down the corridor that never seems to end. For a moment, he thinks that this is the _Void,_ that this infinity within the four walls of his home is some twisted trick, but then there is a door. Not a door he knows, but one to a room that he ought not enter. 

There are things he mustn’t touch in his dreams, in any place that he goes, and this is one of them. But his touch matters little for how the blackness spreads from the door, in tandem with the volume of whimpers that have morphed to screams. He wants to help, wants to touch, but he _can’t_ \-- he knows without doubt that this is something intended to hurt, to leech life from any being with a beating heart. 

Diego is certain he must be screaming now. He, the inhabitant of the room, and Five. All at once and then not at all as the blackness finally reaches him and he shoots up in bed, his _own_ bed. 

Surrounded by his own four walls, finite and a muted green. Adorned with Mom’s cross stitch, with his own demented words carved into the plaster. 

There are some new ones, barely visible and bloody. Belatedly, Diego looks down to see that his fingernails are broken, stinging fiercely with paint and plaster beneath them. That the wound on his hand has reopened, the one Ben made sure Mom had stitched before they finally went to bed. 

Fisting his worn and forever stained pillow to quell the bleeding, Diego turns over once more, ignoring the words despite how they have burned themselves into his brain. He closes his eyes, but they linger in his vision long after he finally drifts off again. 

_Keep an eye._

-:-

A palm collides with his forehead, a swift slap that jars the wires running from his crown, all the way down his neck and spine. 

Dad’s associates are impatient, this one in particular, but Diego’s learned not to take it personally. 

“I do believe he’s defective, Reginald.”

Mr Ainsley rips the blindfold from his eyes. He is a tall man with big pockets -- Diego knows this for how often he demands appointments -- and a short temper. He’s not built like the other men, who toy with him and tease out the things they desire to hear. Mr Ainsley wants answers and he always wants them fast. He also regularly bypasses any sort of rule that Dad has put into place, no matter how many times he is reminded of them.

“Be that as it may, Theobold,” Dad is sitting behind his desk, scribbling notes into his journal, gaze fixed on the small television before him. “I must remind you once more that Number Two is not to be touched. Are we clear?”

Mr Ainsley grunts, crouching down to level Diego with a glare. “Crystal.”

_Such a neanderthal,_ Five says, and Diego would allow himself a small chuckle in response if not for his current company.

_Tell me about it._

Though Diego has grown a great deal in the last year, he feels rather small from where he is sitting. The chair is the same as always and the wires sit perfectly on his shaved head, but there is a different dynamic at play here. 

Oftentimes Dad will leave the room during these sessions, because they fall at awkward times where one of his siblings might require their own individual training or they have been alerted of a mission. 

Today, there is a mission -- a robbery, nothing major -- and though Dad is present, his attention is clearly elsewhere. He’s glued to that damned screen that’s playing back a tinny recording of Vanya’s violin and disturbing the static, causing a lapse in Diego’s concentration and leaving him at the mercy of Mr Ainsley’s frustration, which is not nearly as restrained as his father’s.

“Are you deaf, boy?”

Dad knows that the slightest amount of sound can make it very difficult for Diego to connect with the _Void,_ and yet the recording still plays. It’s unfair because Diego knows not to ask that he pause it and resume later -- that would be undermining his father in front of his peers, and therefore a very dangerous move indeed. But he has to fulfill this task to Mr Ainsley’s satisfaction, otherwise the man will not be willing to pay and Dad will be discredited. This is arguably worse. 

“Fath-- ”

A hand grabs at Diego’s face before he can get any further in his request. His jaw, held brutally in the grasp of Mr Ainsley’s large and swollen digits, throbs at the action. Mr Ainsley’s palm presses against Diego’s mouth, impeding anything else he might dare to say. Dad doesn’t even spare them a glance.

Diego can hear how Five sighs at this neglect, not entirely surprised at the lack of care but disappointed nonetheless. 

_Bite him._

_What?_

_You should bite him. Dad hates it when people manhandle the merchandise._

So Diego does, teeth sinking into Mr Ainsley’s sweaty palm, only for the man to promptly smack him across the face. 

Belatedly, he thinks that perhaps Five might have been wrong. Dad’s never hesitated in raising a hand towards Diego before, so why would he care that someone else is doing it? 

Hot blood bursts from his split lip, dripping down his chin. It is of no loss as his nose would have bled regardless. But it is then that his father stands to attention behind the desk, notes discarded, television off, and a look so severe on his face that Diego finds himself entirely frozen in apprehension. 

“You may go, Number Two.” 

Diego makes to stand, no longer strapped to the chair after all this time (unless he’s feeling particularly difficult), before Mr Ainsley’s heavy hand on his shoulder stops him. 

“I’m not finished.”

Diego looks to his father who does not look back. His eyes are locked to Mr Ainsley as he rolls his cuffs in a show of nonchalance. 

“I think you’ll find that you are finished. You have been for quite some time now.” Diego tries to stand once more and the hand pinches tighter. He rocks in the seat, anxiety not due to Mr Ainsley’s grip, but his Dad’s next move. 

Dad, who finally levels Diego with an unreadable gaze before saying: “You are foolish, Theobold, if you think that _biting_ is the worst that Number Two is capable of.”

“And you are foolish if you thi-- ”

“That is quite enough.” Dad dismisses a seething Mr Ainsley and waves a hand at Diego. “Off you go, child.”

“Yes, S-Sir.”

Taking his dismissal as permission, Diego rips his arm from Mr Ainsley’s grasp and shoves past the man, resisting the urge to spit a glob of blood at his feet as it’s not the kind of retaliation that Dad would ever allow. 

What swipes Mr Ainsley makes for him as he walks to the door are curved to the best of Diego’s ability. He rants and raves at Dad, about what he has paid for and what he shall get, how this is a crooked scheme and Diego was once capable, but is now hardly trying. 

This carries on and on, even as Diego exits the study through the side door and makes his way along the upstairs corridor, before coming to an abrupt end once he veers left for his bedroom. 

He has no clue how his father managed to silence Mr Ainsley so swiftly, has no desire to know the truth of it. He dwells only on the fact of Dad’s defense, how he protected Diego when Mr Ainsley had hurt him and was likely planning to hurt him further. 

Confusing are the feelings that battle in his chest at this thought. Warring with one another over his daring to believe that this is a show of care on his father’s behalf, perhaps even what Mom had been talking about before Diego cut her off in the laundry room.

As he makes it to his room, however, he is torn from these thoughts at the sight of both Klaus and Vanya; one rather comfortable on his bed, the other perched delicately, as though afraid she might disturb something. 

“W-W-Wh-- ” Diego pauses, swallows, and tries to gather himself again, wiping his bloody lip with the back of his hand. “Why aren’t you on the mission?”

Klaus laughs, shrill and loud, smacking his hand against the bed.

Vanya responds flatly: “He’s high.”

“I am not.”

“You are. But that’s not the point.”

“No, the point is-- wait!” Klaus yells this like anyone at all was going to interrupt him, leaning forward on the bed, enough that he looks about to topple off. “Why aren’t _you_ on the mission?”

Vanya doesn’t question it because Dad had provided a suitable excuse at breakfast -- which was that it is nobody’s business. Diego knows the secondary appropriate response, so he offers it, with as much confidence as he can manage. 

_“I don’t w-w-work w-well with others.”_ He quotes, and it’s not a complete lie.

_That’s an understatement,_ Five says and Diego ignores him. 

“Haven’t been on the last few, actually.”

“Huh…” Klaus frowns and presses a finger to his chin as though pondering. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“You liter-- _literally_ asked me the same thing two d-days ago.”

“I did? I have the mind of a sieve, you know. Mother could use me for her baking.” 

Next to Klaus, Vanya coughs into her fist. Subtle, but enough of a hint that even _he_ can pick up on. 

“Oh, right! Well, Diego, the reason why we have decided to ambush you in your room is because we’re a tad worried.”

“About?”

“The mission.” Vanya says, standing to meet him in the middle of the floor. “What happened to your face?”

Diego sucks at his bottom lip, swollen and coppery, and waves her off. “Doesn’t m-ma-matter. The mission?”

Klaus bounces on the bed, coming up on his knees to be at level with the pair. 

“We were hoping you could do your little magic trick and find out what’s going on with the others.”

Vanya nods, eager but with an edge of hesitance. “Yeah, it’s been hours. It’s probably nothing, but there are only three of them.”

Shame bites at Diego; he should be there. Vanya’s right -- some missions have taken days for them to complete -- but today’s should have been fairly simple in its execution. A planned factory raid, one that Diego had warned his father of, who warned the owner of the factory and had the sense to evacuate all the employees prior to the police forming a concealed perimeter. 

“W-W-Why are you w-w-- concerned?”

Vanya looks to Klaus then, who squirms a little on the bed and fixates on his hands. 

“I’ve got a bad feeling. Haven’t you?”  
  


_Yes you have._

Five is right. Ever since his dream, Diego’s been anticipating the arrival of something terrible. Vanya shrugs, but Klaus looks at him then with a kind of intensity that causes Diego to squirm. He’s right, Five is right. If they weren’t, he wouldn’t be so willing to let them use him this way.

“Fine.”

Diego drops to the floor and both siblings move as if to catch him. He’s fine, just getting comfortable. Klaus settles next to him as he removes the wireless radio from his dresser, where it’s been since he and Ben spent the night listening to grainy music, and places it on the floor. 

Klaus has never seen him do this, but it’s Vanya’s second time. Still, she sits next to him with clear trepidation, folding her legs beneath her uniform skirt as he removes the earlier blindfold from his pocket.

“Do you need something of Ben’s?”

“Oh, this is becoming increasingly witchy.”

“No.” Diego says, tying the black cloth around his eyes. He rarely does this in his room, because he does it enough in sessions, but the environment is comfortable and the daylight is low enough that he’s not too worried about accessing the _Void._ “There are three of them. Should be like a l-lightning r-r-rod.”

Klaus hums, hands steepling. It’s the last thing Diego sees before he covers his eyes and his siblings understand his unspoken demand for silence. 

Perhaps it’s because he had been on the verge of it in Dad’s study earlier, but he finds himself in the _Void_ rather quickly. True as he said, he locates his siblings with little difficulty -- two of them, at least. 

Luther and Allison are hidden behind something, backs to the wall, covered in sweat with their chests heaving. 

_“You need to try talking to him!”_ Luther yells over the noise, though it’s one that Diego can’t concentrate on enough to think of the source. 

_“I can’t rumour tentacles, Luther!”_ Allison’s voice cracks at the end, but Diego is far too removed to realise why she’s upset. He simply tries to cast the net wider -- where is Ben? He has to be close by. 

Before he can focus on that though, Allison’s head peeks around whatever they’re hidden behind -- a large, metal drum, enough room for the two of them -- as she barks a rumour towards their source of distress.

_“I heard a rumour that you left him alone!”_

Her voice is hoarse, but with a gulp she tries once more. 

_“I heard a rumour that you-- Ben, please!”_ She slams her back against the barrel, missing attack by a mere few inches. _“That you were never shot.”_

_Ben’s been shot,_ Five says.

_Ben’s been shot,_ Diego says, seemingly repeating it aloud to the two siblings sitting on his bedroom floor if their echoing gasps are anything to go by. 

A hand on his shoulder and they’re shaking him, drawing him away from the _Void_ and where he needs to be. 

_No,_ he says, vicious. He grounds himself further in the factory, does his best to latch onto anything: the smell of motor oil, the whirring of machines, the feeling of Allison’s fear and she heaves and cries into the sleeve of her academy blazer. 

Diego takes a step, then another, each of the tentacles passing through him as he makes his way closer to the thing that the _Void_ hadn’t wanted him to see. 

_Ben._

Ben on the floor, in the _Void’s_ shallow waters, blood staining his uniform; far more than Diego’s accustomed to seeing him soaked in. 

He gasps, short and panicked breaths, fingers scraping for purchase, eyes wide and blind with fear, chest wide open for the world to see. 

_“Screw this, I’m going in.”_

_“Luther, no!”_

Diego turns around and there is Luther, sprinting in their direction. Towards Ben, who has not moved an inch, who’s hardly taken more than a few bubbling breaths. 

Then, a tentacle shoots out, heading straight for Luther, ready to split him clean in half with the speed it’s currently sustaining. Allison screams and Diego doesn't think, no, when he reaches out with his palms to curve it, only that he must protect his brother from harm.

Luther gapes at the diversion, mystified by the Horror avoiding him of its own accord, and Diego wishes his brother knew he was there, because then he won’t take this as fortune or familiarity. But Luther doesn’t know that Diego is the one who just saved him from being cut in two, only that this momentary lapse on behalf of the Horror has made it that bit easier to get close to Ben. 

Close isn’t close enough, though, and once he passes an invisible Diego, Luther is forced once more to duck behind another drum, for how the Horror thrashes even worse with proximity to Ben. 

Diego won’t realise until years later that this moment, the worst moment of their lives, was the only time he’d ever seen Luther cry. 

But many things only dawn upon him in hindsight. Such as the fact that what he’s about to do won’t help, not one bit. 

Still, Diego moves closer to Ben, so deep in the _Void’s_ clutches now that he can almost feel his brother’s painting when he leans down to meet his face. 

Ben doesn’t see him, just as Allison and Luther can’t, but his mouth still opens wider in an attempt to form words. 

_“Please,”_ Ben begs into the empty factory, into the nothingness of the _Void. “Please stop. We’re going to die.”_

_He’s talking to Them,_ Five says. 

_He’s going to die,_ Diego whimpers. 

He must have moved in reality, for the hands that grab at him; Klaus and Vanya, calling for him. Diego shrugs them off, yelling, battling with his own will to stay and to keep Ben alive. His feet move beneath him, but in the _Void_ he is glued to Ben’s side, doing as much as he possibly can to calm the Horror’s thrashing until he can physically reach the scene and body can connect with mind. 

_You’ll be too late,_ Five insists and he is right. 

Diego knows, he's _always_ known, that he should not touch. That the Horror is an unknown variable, much like the _Void_ is, that his father cannot control. That even _Ben_ cannot control. 

He knows he should not touch, but the sight of his brother, writhing, screaming, begging for help as the creature demands to set free, triggers something in Diego that lacks reason. 

Ben is a tsunami of viscera, chest and stomach wide open where the bullet likely hit, a space that the Horror took advantage of to protect its host.

Diego only wants to comfort him, that’s why he does it. Out of some bizarre hope that Ben might feel him, might know that he’s not alone in this inevitable death. 

So it is that he reaches out, fingers aching for his brother’s, only to pass right through. 

_No no no no._

He’s certain he must be screaming now, but it does nothing to deter him. Diego tries again, reaching for Ben’s wound to apply pressure, to slow the bleeding and ease the Horror’s evident fear at losing its only access to this world. 

He makes contact and, for a moment, he allows himself to be filled with mindless hope that he might be able to save his brother. Fingers deep in black mucus, blood spilling through, the tension in Diego’s chest shatters in relief. 

But it is over quite quickly when something else shatters. There is nowhere that can be safe when you live with such afflictions, as Diego learns when the Horror lashes out in vicious whispers, one of its tentacles curling around to slam against him in his distraction. 

A crack down the side of his skull like lightning. 

He reels, everything blurring into a bitter mirror of reality and the _Void._

Beside him, Ben’s whimpers have died down. Above him, Vanya is screaming louder than he’s ever heard her. Luther and Allison emerge from behind the drums and thunder towards Ben, leaping over tentacles that have died with their host. In Diego’s blurred vision, Klaus falls to his knees in the foyer, _howling._

Ben bleeds out on the concrete. Diego bleeds out on the marble floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw:  
> \- accidental self-harm  
> \- child abuse  
> \- gore  
> \- major canon character death
> 
> much of the dialogue in the first part of the chapter was from the comics, or the general idea. yes, diego did punch the murder magician in the face and knock him out on live tv, he also killed zombie robot gustave eiffel. number one, who??? 
> 
> this chapter and the one that will follow are the main reason i started this fic, so keep an eye out! and i'm sorry in advance :/


	17. across the universe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diego's being flayed alive, world upside down, flipped entirely on its axis, turning him inside out. 
> 
> This is what Ben knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please be aware that diego is an unreliable narrator for the majority of this. also there are lots of needles. more triggers in the end notes.

The world pulses in shades of red. 

"There's so much _blood--_ "

"Don't let him touch it!"

_Let me go._

"Darling, can you hear me? Lay still, now. Vanya, pass me the-- "

" _No, no, no,_ Benny. No!"

_Let me go._

"-- take your brother outside?"

"That is quite enough!"

" -- Sir, I don't think that's a good idea."

"-- you wish the boy to die?"

"Just a pinch, darling. One pinch and it will all be over."

_Let me go. Let me go. Let me go._

Everything dissolves into black.

-:-

There is no certainty after that. A feeling of floating, perhaps, wrapped securely in a shroud of darkness, the cold bites. It gnaws. It is the _Void_ keeping him, that much is clear. 

Faces trickle into his mind’s eye, pale for all the colour that has been seeped from them. 

A light, the face of his father, condemning. A syringe and a scowl, a flush of ice cold into his veins and eyes that burn in disappointment.

Yellow curls and fingers in his hair. A sticky kiss to his forehead. He thinks. Not in his own body so much as in a hole, a dark place where he can only view these sensations as if through a telescope. 

Someone calls his name, the view is gone. 

-:-

When Diego awakes, he is alone. 

Consciousness is a lukewarm thing, the feel of his fingers and toes returning slowly, his vision focusing enough to sharpen the sight of a needle protruding from the crook of his elbow. 

Were he more aware, his stomach might have turned at the mere thought of it, a rush of butterflies in his gut, but these things only greet him slowly. With the first breath he takes, his body prioritises the movement of his limbs over the order of his head. One arm swings up of its own accord to paw at his face, check for any tubes or cables that might be fixed there. 

There’s the usual that each of them are accustomed to -- a pad pressed to his temple, with a tangle of coloured wires emerging. Roughly, he removes it, hands uncoordinated and slow in their movements while simultaneously feeling as though they are travelling at the speed of light. 

When Diego finally manages to sit up, he takes in the sight of the infirmary surrounding him. On a cot in the middle of the room, it’s a place and position he knows well. Belatedly, despite the free movement of his limbs, he realises that he has not been tied down, only fixed to the bed with the sheet that’s tucked tightly around his form. 

He fidgets, the corners coming undone, and feels as if he might tip over sideways for the rush it sends to his head. 

His head. 

It feels funny, almost like nothing at all. Following that dawning upon him, Diego believes that perhaps he is not currently in his own body and instead elsewhere, but when he flexes his scabbed fingers, he sees the very same movement happen before his eyes. Interesting. 

He tugs at the sheet, crisp and white as it is, and causes it to bunch up and crease around his calves. When he finally frees himself of its grasp, he pivots on the mattress and lands with a stumble on the tiled floor, feet bare, baby blue pajamas falling a tad on the short side. 

His first step, uncertain as it is, triggers a pinch to his arm, and it’s then that he remembers the needle. Yes. It has to come out. 

He’s done it before, he knows. In the water. In the bath. Not always on purpose. This will be easy, though. It won’t hurt at all; it can’t, for he hardly feels a thing. 

His hands shake when he removes the medical tape holding the needle in place, when the sliver of metal budges beneath his skin. There’s nothing to do but yank it out, as dizzying as that is, and toss it into the trash can by the various monitors. 

He misses by an inch. 

Standing with a wobble in the middle of the room, he grabs at various things in passing to balance himself. The chair rail provides support until he can pass the door and make it to the stairs, where he leans heavily on the bannister as he takes one step at a time. 

From below, voices sound. Hushed and urgent, watery. He reaches for them and stumbles without the aid of his right arm. The last few steps greet him with a jolt, ears ringing even more than usual with the shock of it and cancelling out all sound. He’s making his way towards the drawing room, but it feels as if he’s underwater. 

He leans on the arch, pajamas slipping on the mahogany, and regards the room as a whole. His siblings, as they are perched at various points around the room, are hard to focus on. So he stills on a single point -- Five’s portrait above the mantelpiece -- and breathes as deeply as he can manage.

_“Diego!”_

Suddenly alert, he looks at his sister then. Allison. The bags under her eyes lack makeup, puffy and tinged with red. She’s been crying. 

He hums in response, focusing his attention on how her brows come together, the strain in her face. 

“I asked if you’re okay?”

He nods, a movement that jars him slightly and makes the room spin with each step he takes towards her. Allison reaches a hand out as if to catch him, but leaves him be as he settles into the couch. 

“You hit your head. Split it open on the tile.” 

Allison is feeding him these lines, this information. He knows what she wants him to say, to be good and go along with things. To sit quietly and make no fuss, but that’s not what happened. He is sure of this, though he knows not why. 

“No, I didn’t.” Diego says plainly, taking the time to measure each of his siblings for how they react. 

“Yes, you _did.”_ Luther cuts in, cracked and hoarse, before clearing his throat to speak once more. “We came home from-- from the mission and there was a puddle of blood on the floor. Allison had to give you some of hers.”

Diego scoffs, despite the spike of pain it shoots across his scalp. “Sorry to inc-c-convenience you.”

Luther sighs, like it’s futile, and rises to vanish beneath the room’s arch. Allison moves to follow him but is waved off. Vanya sits and stares at her hands. Klaus looks at nothing at all. 

“Does it hurt?” Vanya finally asks, cautiously meeting his gaze. 

_No,_ Diego thinks, _it doesn’t._ He doesn’t feel much of anything, sitting there in his pajamas, except for the cold that has managed to squeeze itself beneath door frames and window panes. 

“It’s nothing.” He says, because at the moment it feels that way. 

“We should have caught you. I’m sorry.” 

“W-W-Wouldn’t have made a difference.”

Vanya looks like she believes otherwise. Mouth worrying in a crooked line, she regards him with teary eyes and poorly veiled guilt. Why would she blame herself? His skin was split to the skull before he even hit the ground. 

“It would--”

“Diego, darling.” Mom enters then, the click of her heels the only sound in the room, Luther hot on her tail. “There you are!”

Klaus flinches at her cheery demeanour, the only move he’s made to signify that he is in fact present and alive. 

“You shouldn’t be out of bed, silly. Good thing Luther thought to tell me where you ran off to.”

Diego scowls at his brother, shoulders squaring even though he’s still sitting down. When his fists clench, his left hand stings viciously. Belatedly, Diego realises that there is a cut on his palm, long and clean, with black stitches likely matching the ones on his head. 

He doesn’t remember how he got it.

“I’m fine.” Diego says, severe and assured. “I d-d-d-- _not_ going back to bed.”

He is fine. His head is a weighty thing, yet somehow still made of cotton and utterly light. There is a vague feeling of something amiss on the right hand side, of a displacement, but when he focuses too much on it the room begins to spin again. 

When he blinks, Mom is standing in front of him, his siblings a background blur. She says something, coaxing him into standing. Diego tries his best, he does, to hear what it is that she’s saying. 

“Come on, now.” Her hands drape softly across his shoulders. “Let’s get you cleaned up for the funeral.”

_Funeral?_

“That’s it, darling. Easy does it.”

_Oh._

“I’ll get you some gauze to cover that up.”

His hand. The knife. Ben.

Ben died. 

Ben is dead. 

-:-

It snows at the funeral, flurries of it falling in the Academy courtyard and landing atop their uniform black umbrellas.

Ben always liked the snow. 

Allison is crying as Luther ushers her outside, fat tears frozen before they can even slip from her cheeks and land in the gravel below. Klaus too, a burst dam, snapped from his earlier reverie and forced into the reality of the situation. 

_Ben is dead._

Over and over again, Diego repeats the phrase in his mind. Pictures it as if he might dare to speak it aloud. 

A hand to his shoulder draws him away. Mom. They’re standing under the same umbrella. Her palm comes to rest against the crook of his elbow, bearing his weight and righting his stance. He must have been favouring one side, leaning too heavily on it; Dad wouldn’t like that, not at such a serious occasion. 

“Thanks, M-M-M-M-- ” His bottom lip is swollen, someone must have hit him before everything went wrong. Mr Ainsley, yes. It makes speaking that bit harder. “Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about falling now, darling, I’ve got you.”

Mom surreptitiously supports him from then on, even as Dad enters the courtyard -- the first sighting Diego’s had of him since Ben died -- and begins the eulogy.

“The world is full of injustice; good people die along with the bad. This cosmic equation will never change, unless evil itself is wiped from existence.” 

There is so much evil, Diego thinks. Too much to be obliterated by merely four of them. Five, when their missing member returns home. 

“Thankfully, there are powerful forces pushing back against the wicked and iniquitous, individuals who have the strength to pull together against insurmountable odds, to face adversity with unblinking courage, and not to hesitate to sacrifice themselves for another.”

He should have sacrificed more, really. A scratch to the side of his head is nothing in comparison to what Ben had to go through. Diego should have tried harder, given more of himself over to the _Void_ in his head, to the place in Ben’s stomach. 

Dad knows this, he knows everything. He can surely tell by just looking at Diego exactly what happened, and whatever blanks there are can be filled in by Luther. Luther who looks hopeful next to Allison, at their father’s words. Who looks relieved, that this speech, this lecture, is not as awful and demeaning as he feared. 

Diego knows better. But, from the outside, Luther and Allison were the only other people on the mission. Perhaps Dad was satisfied by the fact that they had done as much as they could to save Ben. 

A light layer of snow tops the coffin, the kind of thing Ben might have drawn pictures on with the tips of his frozen fingers, like he used to with the frost on the inside of the attic window. Diego’s no good at drawing, but he’s got nice handwriting, Pogo said, so he wants to write something, _anything._ Mom pinches his elbow softly as he moves to do so. 

Her halting of his movements are redundant, however, as his father’s next words prove more effective in stopping him in his tracks. 

“Unfortunately, _none_ of you are such people.”

Next to Diego, Vanya whimpers. He’s not shocked by the sudden shift in Dad’s tone, but it smarts all of them, nonetheless. 

Particularly Allison, whose tears continue to spill, no shame in addressing their father head on. 

“It wasn’t our fault.”

_It wasn’t,_ Diego would like to tell her. 

_I saw everything. There was nothing you could have done._

_“Excuses?_ I will not hear them.” Diego can’t defend her like this, Luther either. Something in Dad’s eyes renders him stuck, entirely unable to speak as he carries on in his tirade.

“The Umbrella Academy has failed one of their own, the consequences of which are dire.” Each of them wither beneath his glare, Klaus’ chin tucked against his chest, Luther’s jutting out in a poor show of feigned strength. “Hold onto this feeling, children. Let it fester in your hearts, so there is never a next time.”

This feeling doesn’t have a name, or a single sensation that Diego can attribute to it beyond numbness. There is the sense of failure, of course, that crushes him, that he is unwilling to face or address in his current state. Accountability that rests solely upon his shoulders, for he saw Ben and Allison and Luther in that factory, saw how their hands were tied, how any act of bravery would have resulted in two dead siblings at least, for how far gone their brother was into the hands of the Horror. 

Whatever the feeling is, however it manifests, will be elsewhere. In the _Void,_ where he keeps such things until they fade into nothing. Until it feels as if Ben wandered off during dinnertime and has yet to return from his travels. 

“Training will be cancelled today out of respect for your brother. We resume tomorrow at 6 am.”

With that, their father is gone, Pogo quick to follow. Mom stays because Diego does. She does not hum or sway, only stares at Ben’s coffin, like the facts of his death have all been presented before her but she can’t quite piece them together.

Dad’s only been gone a second or two before Vanya speaks, anything to break the sound of sniffling that Allison and Klaus are passing back and forth.

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

It was. She should know this. Diego was there, she asked him to be. She and Klaus approached him and told him to go find Ben and he _did._ He found Ben, but he could not _save_ Ben. The fault is entirely his own. 

“How w-w-would you know, V-Vanya? You w-weren’t even there.”

Vanya rears back, umbrella in her reddening grip, tears running down her reddening face. 

Allison, in a surprising turn of events, comes to her defence. “Neither were you, Diego.”

He leans forward and everything tilts, Mom grabs him before he can fall. “Careful now, darling.”

“Yes I wa-was. You just c-c-couldn’t see me.”

Allison scoffs at this, eyes rolling and more tears falling with the action. “Maybe you should check his head again, Mom. Make sure all his brains didn’t fall out.”

Mom wraps an arm around his shoulder, addressing Allison with her usual matter of fact tone. “Your brother’s brain matter is entirely intact, Allison. His wound has been adequately stitched, there is no need to worry.”

“Oh, _trust_ me,” Allison laughs, bitter despite the blatant exhaustion in her stance. “I’m not.”

“ _Guys…_ ” Klaus whines, rubbing his eyes. It’s the first Diego’s heard from him since the pair of them sat with Vanya on his bedroom floor. He looks terrible, shaking like a leaf and white as the snow that swirls around them with increasing speed. “I don’t think we should fight. Ben hates fighting.”

“Hated.” Luther corrects where none of them would dare to. “He _hated_ fighting.”

“ _Hates._ ” Diego does this mostly to be difficult, to disagree with Luther. Another thought occurs to him -- one he wishes not to dwell on too much at the moment -- a hope that the _Void_ can shed some light on the situation. That Ben is out there for him to find.

He chooses not to think about what that would mean for Five.

Luther scoffs, moving closer to Allison like there are sides now, and Klaus and Diego are on the wrong one. 

“Allison’s right. You weren’t there -- ” _Here,_ Diego tries to interrupt, Luther ploughs on before he is able. “You have _no idea._ Klaus is high, what’s your excuse? Ben’s getting too much attention for _dying_ so you decide to crack your skull open and steal some of the spotlight?”

_That makes no sense,_ Diego wants to say. 

_I told the others before you even got home._

_I saved you. I touched him._

But nothing comes out when he opens his mouth, nothing that he can articulate into a sentence that makes sense. 

“I’m not high.” Klaus mumbles to deaf ears, kicking at the snow.

Diego’s teeth bite at his bottom lip, where the wound stings, but only vaguely. The drugs are the cause of this shortage, of course, but his siblings will only see his inadequacy, his inability to speak and defend his seemingly erratic actions. 

What reason would they have to believe he was there? They never saw him. And though Luther has cast his eyes upon the contents of Diego’s journal, it lacked context that Dad undoubtedly warped or simply refused to provide. 

Luther and Allison don’t know the truth of it, they only know enough to torment and placate him respectively. Vanya and Klaus pushed him to do this and there they stand, utterly silent by his side. 

“I w-w-w-wa-- ” Diego can feel how Mom attempts to utter her automatic response, her encouragement, but he rips from her grasp, standing by himself in the snow; closer to the coffin and utterly imbalanced. 

“I was _there._ ” 

Luther looks at him with disgust, arm wrapping around Allison as he turns to walk her inside. 

“This is low, Diego. Even for you.”

He blinks and they are gone. Vanya too. 

Mom is at his elbow again, but Diego pays no heed; eyes glued to where Klaus stands, sniffling over their brother’s coffin. 

“Klaus, dear?”

“I’m good, Mom.” Klaus responds, hardly sparing them a glance. “Think I might stay out here for a little while.”

Diego wishes Klaus would just look at him, but his eyes are fixed on Ben. What’s left of Ben. 

He thinks that maybe Klaus would understand, because he can talk to people too, even if they have to be dead for him to do so. It’s not that much of a stretch, that Diego can speak to the living, wherever they may be; that he can risk a glance into memories hidden behind locked doors. 

He found Allison, then Klaus. He found Five too, though none of them believed him. He found Ben when Klaus and Vanya asked him to and yet there they stood as their remaining siblings accused him of _lying._ Why would they ask him to find Ben if they never even believed he could do it in the first place?

Diego and Mom are no longer in the courtyard, but making their way towards the bedrooms. He must have walked, one foot in front of the other, despite recalling nothing of the action. 

“That’s it, darling, we’re almost there.”

When they arrive at Diego's room, she eases him onto the bed. He fidgets in her fussing and feels immediately guilty for it. This agitation is commonplace, but something he typically conceals and rarely feels at all around Mom. 

It’s not her fault that he controls next to nothing in his life; that his own siblings’ perceptions of him are that of an attention-seeking hysteric. That they turn on him so willingly, at the very first sign of conflict or disapproval from their father, from Luther. Diego did what was asked of him, nothing more. 

Ben was his brother too. 

Mom leans across his bed to open the window an inch. The glass is covered in frost, but the cold doesn’t deter her in the slightest. 

“You’re a tad feverish from the accident. But don’t worry, that’s just your body’s natural response; a defense mechanism. It won’t be like last time, Diego.” 

Last time -- she means with Five. She means the big ordeal of an apparent illness that Luther now uses any excuse to bring up. He’s not afraid of the fever, for he knows it’s not the same. He relinquished his hold of that string, Five’s string. He allowed it to float from his grasp in favour of finding Allison. But now Five’s silence is deafening, and Diego can’t recall letting _him_ go.

“Arms up!”

Diego levels his mother with a halfhearted glare. “I’m n-n-not a baby.”

“Well yes, I can see that, Diego.” She replies with a smile, but he detects the sarcasm behind it. Mom always surprises him like that. “But I wouldn’t like your sweater to snag on my perfect stitches. So, up to the sky for me.”

He complies, arms lazily raised as she removes his woollen vest with absolute delicacy. Mom doesn’t brush against his head wound or aggravate his lip, or the slice on his palm, and when he’s in the clear, she gathers his vest, along with other dirty clothing from his hamper and heads for the door. 

“I’m going to drop these off at the laundry room and I’ll be back in a jiff.”

“It’s okay, M-Mom. I think I’m gonna w-w-write in my journal.”

He’s going to do no such thing, but the way her face lights up tells him that she is convinced. 

“Wonderful, darling. Well, I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything.”

“‘Kay, M-M-Mom. Love you.”

“I love you too, Diego.”

She leaves him with a smile, propping the door slightly ajar, saying she’ll be back later to bandage his head. Then Diego’s shaking hands manage to work the buttons of his shirt, peeling it back, opening his cuff to spare the linen brushing off his split palm. 

There Diego sits in his uniform trousers and time passes. He can’t be certain of how much, only that it does, for how the snow stops and starts beyond his window pane. 

There, on his wall, the words he’s drawn and carved blend together, a vicious mass swirling in his vision, snapping like teeth. 

_Keep an eye._

Five said that, Diego knows now. He can hear how it was said, desperate and grasping as Dad yanked him from the bath to find Allison. 

The dream it came from, full of shadows as it was, housed Five too. Five told him to help. Five told him to keep an eye; on the blackness, how it coated the walls of his dream, a warped and decayed version of their childhood home? As it spread from Ben’s gut and coated Diego’s hands and arms in the Horror’s viscous matter?

_Keep an eye._

_I need you to promise me one thing._

_No, listen. I need you to keep an eye on B---_

On Ben. 

_Help them,_ Five had said in the dream. 

No, help _Ben._

His brother had warned him, halfheartedly, of Ben’s incoming demise. A trickle of information as the world slid from beneath Diego, mixed and heavily disturbing messages in his dreams. 

Why didn’t Five just _tell_ him?

Without thinking, Diego’s closed fist slams into the wall by his side, plaster crumbling around the offending words, biting at the skin on his knuckles. 

He seethes, head in hands, a lump in his throat that refuses to budge; bobs up and down, choking him. Absently, he is aware of the wound above his ear, raw beneath his fingertips, but it still feels like nothing, like a blank space compared to the anger that swallows him, has him swaying in his seat. 

“Five?” He tries, working the single syllable around in his throat, fingers clenching against the snow-spotted fabric of his slacks. “Five, _please.”_

“W-W-Where’d you go? You need to c-cc-come back now.”

“I d-don’t know how to fi- to fix this, _please._ ”

“I’m so m-m-mm--- _mad_ at you.”

Shoving off the bed, he lands with relative stability on the carpet. He’d pace if he could manage the exertion, tug at his hair if he had any. Diego would yell at Five if he were here in the slightest --- in the room, in his head. 

But he’s gone; not in the sense of his string, for that has long ago vanished, but his presence, gone from the back of Diego’s mind. His nagging voice no longer dispensing unsolicited advice. Diego hasn't heard a peep from Five since he woke up in the infirmary and it’s the longest he’s gone without hearing his brother’s voice since the first time he located him in the _Void._

In Diego’s periphery, he spots a dash of red. It’s in the mirror, where his figure is on full display --- broad and bruised shoulders, a ridge for each rib, his bottom lip still swollen and purple, his nose dripping blood onto his chin. He turns his head and there, on the right, is the wound. 

It curls above his ear, like the beginnings of a Lichtenberg figure and points downwards, ending on the high point of his cheekbone. Still, he cannot feel it, the drugs likely numbing any of the pain, but he knows that it will be there forever. 

Five should have told him; to spare Ben, to spare _this._ Five had so much time to explain it all, how he even knew that things would change, how he could piece things together like he’d been given a manual on their lives. How foolish Diego had been to believe that Five could just _know_ these things when he rarely bothered with anyone outside of himself. He knew exactly how things were going to go, and just strung Diego along in the _Void_ instead of giving him real answers. 

Yet here Diego is, nose bleeding for his subconscious efforts in finding Five once more, redundant as that is; the _Void_ won’t let him in, not in this state.

Distracted as he is by his missing brother’s glaring absence, his body is not prepared in the slightest for the sudden wash of pain that strikes it; though not to where he would expect. A jolt to his stomach. His eyes dart to the skin there, feeling as though something should be amiss. It hurts, a pang that radiates, has the muscles there clenching in the mirror. 

Diego doubles over, chest tucked to his thighs, but it’s not the red of blood that stains his carpet, no, it’s black. Dripping from his nose, it’s cold. It stings his lip and has him spitting as it catches his tongue, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand as the pain subsides only slightly. Perhaps it was the drugs, too hard on his stomach after a day with no meals. 

He tells himself this to stave off any worry, coming to rest on the bed once more, where he slowly slips his arms into his pajama sleeves, unbuttons his slacks for a more comfortable alternative. 

Diego takes stock of everything around him. He’s in his room and it is real. The only blackness is the stain on his carpet, the only cold comes through his open window. Five is not where he once was and Ben is no longer sketching on the floor. 

His bedroom door clicks softly shut and there are only three possible culprits, for he can hear Klaus through the open window, still in the courtyard, talking to someone. 

He can hear other things too, if he strains himself to do so. The whistle of a draught from a cracked pane, the steady tap of footsteps on the stairs; laughter in the courtyard despite the fact that Klaus was left entirely alone. 

It culminates into a single overwhelming sound, a static. A perfect storm. It is everything and then absolutely nothing.

_Hello, Diego. It’s nice to finally meet you._

Nothing but the sound of whispers, as they start and never stop. 

-:-

Everything goes back to how it was, yet nothing is the same. 

They’re a member short. Luther and Allison can’t do everything alone. Diego returns to the field. Klaus does not, content to swan about the Academy, talking to himself, pestering Vanya, making the most of having a roof over his head before their father eventually tires of his behaviour. 

So it is that Diego must return to his regular training and is no longer solely focused on attending to the men that his father invites to the house. It’s hard, juggling both, but the constant occupation keeps his mind free of things that might threaten to invade it. Negative thoughts, mainly. He’s fallen victim to them too often, recently, though he chooses to ignore how the voice in the back of his mind no longer sounds like Five. 

Five who has abandoned him. Let him down. Let Ben down. 

It's no matter now.

Today, Dad has the three remaining Academy members practising on dummies, pure combat, no powers. Still, Luther knocks them aside like they’re made of fluff, but no one says anything about that. He’s Number One, he can do no wrong.

Diego longs for Klaus to join in, and then maybe he wouldn’t be forced to deliver kicks and punches to hunks of plastic, but Number Four is off enjoying himself elsewhere. Or not. Diego can never tell anymore. Klaus is on a planet of his own, talking and rambling and laughing and yelling. Sometimes he can keep up; other times he knows there isn’t a single point in trying.

Sweat drips down Diego’s face and neck, soaking the white cotton of his vest. The others are still in their green zip ups, but Allison hates sweating and Luther’s powers make such things take a little longer than normal. 

Diego’s not bothered by it, not in the way that he’s bothered by his patchy hair, how it’s grown out uneven on the right side of his head. Not in the way he dwells on the bags under his eyes, purple like he got socked in the face one too many times. 

The scar looks pretty wicked though, even if there are occasions where he wishes for nothing but a full head of hair to cover it up. If he removes the facts from it: that Ben did it, that the Horror did it, right before _They_ killed Ben. That it hurt more than anything he can remember. If he thinks about other things, like how cool it looks when it catches the light in the mirror, how it’s definitely going to intimidate the criminals he goes up against, Diego feels a little better about the whole thing. 

So, he thinks nothing of how naked he is in comparison to his siblings. The scars that litter his arms from years of throwing knives like they’re toys are commonplace. Diego’s always had scars. And besides, the heat in the training room is _unbearable._ Though it’s been almost a month since Ben-- since he died, winter has only worsened in temperature. Stood next to Dad, Vanya is wrapped in a scarf for the chill that permeates the house on such early mornings, and yet Diego can’t cope. He has to open the window.

Allison immediately objects. “Close that, jeez. It’s freezing.”

“Quiet, children. Grace.” Dad nods at Mom, who makes her way over to Diego and presses the back of her hand flat to his forehead.

“Ninety-five point six, Sir.” She exclaims while Dad jots these figures down in his own book, not directing Vanya to write it in hers as he typically would. 

“Excellent.” Diego’s cheeks warm further at his father’s praise. “Carry on, Number Two.”

Diego practises his high kicks, aiming for vital points on the training dummies, and is gearing up to his first flip in months when Luther interrupts. 

“Why is he here, Sir?”

A weight sinks, heavy and cold, in Diego’s gut.

Dad doesn’t look up from his notes. “Whatever are you referring to, Number One?”

“Why is Di-- Two here? Four hardly trains with us anymore and neither of them come on missions.”

“Well, that is about to change, Number One. Due to your inability to protect Number Six from himself, you and Number Three are all that remains of the Umbrella Academy. And while you might think that will suffice in saving the world from its inevitable downfall, the last mission conveyed your blatant inability to achieve something infinitesimally _less_ than that.”

Luther disregards the majority of that and Diego can’t blame him. He can’t stand Luther, especially right now, but it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t get to Ben. Though his mind is liable to change, particularly with him taking such offense at Diego’s presence. 

“You said so yourself, he’s volatile and unstable.” 

_Fuck you,_ Diego wants to say. 

_You don’t know a single thing about me._

Dad speaks again before Diego can lose his cool. 

“I do not need you to parrot my own words back at me, Number One. You may be the leader of this team, but you are not the one in charge here.”

Diego thought that much had always been clear, but the look on Luther’s face tells that he felt otherwise. He wonders if Luther is just unaccustomed to it -- being punished by Dad. Much of the time, Dad appears to be confiding in Luther, creating a legacy of sorts in him. The truth of that is obvious in Dad’s favour of him, of those _Luther_ holds in favour -- like Allison. Sometimes, the opposite seems more likely; that Dad is stringing Luther along as much as he does the rest of them. 

“Number Two will continue to train as a member of the Umbrella Academy; he has proven himself more than capable, if a tad unpredictable.” Dad says this lightly, to everyone’s shock, like it’s no big deal; when typically, any form of deviance on missions would have earned Diego the most severe of punishments.

“Of course, I expect that you possess the leadership qualities to control your brother’s arbitrary actions, Number One.”

Luther is about to respond, the beginnings of a good, little soldier’s _yes, sir_ on the tip of his tongue, when Diego’s fist flies out of its own volition and collides with the dummy before him. 

He doesn’t know why, nor does he question it, because the feeling of his scabbing fists striking with thick plastic and _splitting_ greatly relieves some of the building tension in his chest. There is a part of him, that whispers and coils, and _it_ knows why. Perhaps, it even triggered the movement, but when Dad and Luther turn to him, seemingly ungrateful for the unwelcome interruption to their conversation, Diego merely shrugs. 

“How ar-ar-arbitrary of me.”

Next to their father --- who is not scowling, merely regarding Diego with intrigue --- Vanya hides a smile behind her clipboard, which Diego does his best not to match. 

“Very well.” Dad says, levelling Mom with a look that carries unknown amounts of significance. “You may resume.”

Luther folds into Allison’s corner of the mat, offering to spar, perhaps; anything to avoid Diego is what it’s seemed like recently. He pays no mind to it, to how they look at him as if he’s something wrong, and instead focuses entirely on the dull thuds of his limbs colliding with the dummy. 

It’s redundant, really. As if this were a real fight, Diego would have killed the man five times over by now. But Dad has always been a stickler for tradition, for teaching them outlandish survival techniques only to pare it right back to the basics. 

Still, there is an amount of satisfaction that stirs in Diego’s gut at the feeling of each hit. He doesn’t stop to take a breath, only delivering relentless strikes to his static opponent. Even as his knuckles split further, blood staining the canvas and plastic, he feels little need to stop. A nagging, a quiet whisper that the blood is nice to see, that it’s _rewarding._

So caught up in this, the feeling of adrenaline flooding his veins in a situation that shouldn’t warrant it, Diego fails to notice how his father looks at him. 

It’s a peculiar thing, and were he not absorbed elsewhere, Diego might have found the calculative look unnerving; something that promises pain. 

But he remains blissfully unaware, fighting and bleeding on the training mats, fueled by an invisible presence that has latched onto him with a grip so lethal, so insidious, that only Reginald Hargreeves, with the aid of his monocle, can see how it’s draining the life from Number Two. 

-:-

  
  


It’s over something dumb. An argument, frustrations mounting after a mission, the feeling of being ganged up on. 

Diego’s not supposed to talk to the press; not after their _Teen Vogue_ interview a few years back. Luther never fails to remind him of this, though Allison is far more hesitant in doing so. 

Without Klaus’ constant stream of rambling before the cameras, most of the responsibility for charisma falls on her. While Luther paints a picture of the perfect leader, strong and dependable, shining in his glory, Allison possesses the charm to lighten things towards an acceptable level. 

Diego? He’s a prop. A silent figure intended to stand in the background, support the bigger players. It’s not his fault that he was asked a question directly. What was he supposed to do? _Ignore_ them?

If Luther’s lecture isn’t bad enough, and Allison’s blatant gloating on top of that, Dad’s clear disappointment in him is the tip of the iceberg. 

He’s fully aware that his speech is abysmal at the best of times. They’re embarrassed by it, he knows. It makes everyone uncomfortable, Allison once told him. And perhaps the frustration had bled into his general demeanour a tad too heavily, perhaps the blood staining his uniform and the fresh and jagged scar lining the side of his head had been surprisingly effective in intimidating the public. But he hadn’t been _aggressive,_ as Luther claimed. He was polite, like Mom taught him to be. 

Still, he was faced with a barrage of criticisms in the car for the sole act of opening his mouth. Home was no better, Klaus in the corridors and laughing up a high-pitched storm at how Diego had sounded on their tinny television; Vanya’s apologetic smile, like she was fearful of his reaction and didn’t wish to be on the receiving end of it. 

Any part of him that would have previously spoken towards rationality vanishes. His mind is instead filled to the brim with whispers and doubts, assurances that his father is right in everything he says, that a few weeks of praise for seemingly senseless things do not attest to care or any form of affection towards Diego. 

“Such language towards those you claim to wish to protect is reprehensible, Number Two.

“To think, I have provided you with an education that most in the world cannot possibly _fathom,_ and still you strive to humiliate the Umbrella Academy with your every waking action.

“Do you not _speak,_ boy? Where do these words go? I have indulged Grace’s childish coaching of your outrageous affliction, but evidently her coddling has served you poorly. Are you indolent or simply an _imbecile?”_

One thing after another, something inside Diego is ready to slip off the precarious edge from which it dangles. It claws at him, longs for action, begs for release.

“I ought to send you right back from whence you came. Though, I highly doubt that they would wish to take you back -- your own mother couldn’t _wait_ to be rid of you. Grace will soon be of the same opinion, I imagine. It’s only a matter of time before she bores of your tedious whining, your desperate need for _any_ form of attention. Number One would never dare to-- ”

The thing inside him careens over the edge.

There is a painting along the second floor colonnade; a Caravaggio, in which someone -- Judith, he thinks -- beheads the Assyrian general, Holofernes. 

Mom hates it. How the blood spurts from Holofernes’ neck in a brutal and unpractised slice, likely for the lack of efficiency in the action and the mess Judith no doubt made. 

Dad loves it. For the deception in the scene, perhaps, the treatment of the figures; the fact that it, like most of the contents of this house, are highly collectible and sought after, yet no one else can have them. 

It doesn’t require much forethought for Diego to leave his father and make his way there, standing at the foot of the painting with a knife clutched firmly in his now healed hand. When he slashes, the canvas splits apart, tears clean like flesh. He slashes again, shredding Holofernes limb from limb, doing a damn sight better than Judith. 

Blinded as he is by the suffocating feeling of rage that buries him beneath the reaches of sense, it doesn’t occur to Diego (and won’t, for a very long time) that he is once again playing right into his father’s hand. That this anger is not organic, but contrived by forces that he is not yet aware of. 

In a blink it is over; a masterpiece vanquished from existence, irreparable for the damage he has done. Breathing heavily where typically he would not need to, Diego regards his work, kicks at the curled segments of canvas that litter the floor. 

When footsteps thunder in his direction, with punishment soon to follow, Diego exhales a breath of unbridled relief. The whispers inside him coo, seemingly satisfied by his actions. 

And for the first time in a long while, _They_ smile. 

-:-

They’re on a mission. 

The usual scenario: a group of power hungry men, attacking and securing hostages, a police perimeter, money and lives at stake. 

All but one have been disarmed, tied to posts and cuffed to radiators. While Allison calms and controls the hostages with nothing but her words, he and Luther advance on the final criminal, whose gun points back and forth like he’s not quite sure who poses the biggest threat. 

With a flick of a knife, the gun flies sideways, where Luther grabs it and tosses the ammo over his shoulder. 

Diego kills the man, then. He knows not why, only that he must. A knife in each hand, he strikes him again and again, until they’re both covered in blood; real this time, not made of oil and turpentine on centuries old canvas. Until Luther peels him off the corpse and Allison rumours him into dropping his knives. 

He yells for them to let go and something inside of him screams to be let out, belting at his insides, winding its way into his ear and festering in his brain. 

_Let us go. Let us go. Let us go._

Allison hears a rumour that Diego didn’t do it; the hostages believe her, the cops too. 

Then she hears that he’s very, very sleepy. 

Diego believes her, _They_ know better.

-:-

Dad isn’t mad at him for what happened, though Luther desperately wants him to be. 

If anything, he’s far more attentive towards Diego. Asks how he’s feeling, if he’s had enough to eat, has Mom taking his temperature with rigid regularity. 

Diego is not punished, where typically he would be, though this change in Dad’s behaviour towards him shouldn’t be so easily trusted. Not when, during their sessions with Dad’s ‘clients’, Diego is once again strapped to his chair. 

It’s not a nice feeling, being stuck like this, victim to the aggression of violent and entitled men. Their current guest leers at him, but does not touch Diego or speak to him directly. Instead, his focus is Dad, as they share a cigar and discuss matters of research like Diego isn’t sitting right there. 

It’s warm in the study, too warm. He’d discarded his blazer prior to the session, left only in his short-sleeved shirt and woollen vest, and still the heat is overwhelming. His fists clench, wrists burning from the leather straps that fix them into place; his ankles are no better. 

The wires that usually fit his head with ease aggravate his wound. It’s essentially fully-healed now, stitches having been taken out weeks ago, but it’s so _itchy._ Between that and the room’s sweltering heat, Diego feels unbearably tense. 

The veins of his forearms run ridges along his skin, pulsing and shrinking, muscle tightening to the bone as he aches to be free of his restraints. It’s sunny outside, Klaus had invited him to tan on the roof like he had nothing better to do. But even if Diego hadn’t been booked by one of his father’s associates for the afternoon, the thoughts of sunning himself in the overwhelming early spring heat struck him with unusual levels of anxiety. 

Even now, he fidgets in his restraints, sweat beading at his forehead while his father and the man make small talk about things Diego doesn’t understand. 

And he is so angry at how they ignore him, how they leave him there, ready to be utilised to their gain whenever they feel like it. To top it all off, there is a thudding noise, a rhythmic and persistent one that, along with the sweltering heat, begins to whittle away at the last of his patience. 

It’s only when both men turn to Diego, his father’s glare most severe of all, that he realises the source of the thudding is the slamming of his own head against the back of the chair he’s currently strapped to. 

He pays for this in many ways, the first of which is a shot of pain to the right hand side of his head, his nerves still seem to recall the feeling of a tentacle slicing them apart. The second is a layered thing that begins with his father rising from behind his desk and dropping his half-smoked cigar into the ashtray. 

“Number Two.”

“Sorry to inter-rr-rupt.”

“I’m sure you are.”

The man looks on at their exchange in bemusement. Diego shoots him a snarky smile, though it quickly drops from his face as Dad approaches his chair and gives him little to no warning before sticking him with a needle in his upper arm. No amount of flailing gives him an escape, for the restraints only seem to tighten with each rapid movement. 

“What’d you give him, Reg?”

Dad hums, dropping the needle into an empty silver dish on the sideboard. “Muscle relaxants.”

Yes, _yes_ he did. Diego isn’t objecting to the feeling of going slack. He’s only confused and unwilling to ponder the _why_ of it all. 

Instead, he coasts on the feeling. Still present of mind, he can feel how everything begins to unclench, how his jaw and neck no longer ache, his legs remain loose and free of spasms. It makes everything easier when they get down to it --- though he can’t promise he doesn’t embellish a few things for this man, who is gullible enough to believe it. The _Void_ is foggy like this, and Diego’s finding it rather hard to truly see anything beyond the absolute basics. 

“So, it’s my assistant?” The man asks Diego, seeking some final clarification. 

“Uh huh...” He responds, shaking his limbs out as he is finally free of his bonds. “They feel very betrayed. Hell bent on r-revenge, y’know? Better w-wa-watch out.”

“Well, is there anything else you can tell me?”

Diego’s about to respond that _no, there isn’t,_ when Dad cuts across him. 

“Not at present. However, if you wish to know more you may consult with Doctor Pogo regarding a follow-up appointment.”

When Dad releases Diego to clean up before dinner, he groggily makes his way back to the living quarters. His head is foggy now too and his limbs hang loose at his sides. He is no longer too hot, he is no longer anything. 

Perhaps the numbness is why he doesn’t notice; why he barely makes it to the bathroom and just about manages to empty his stomach in the sink. His fingers grip the porcelain rim as he coughs and splutters. Throat raw and chest aching, he has no idea how long he stays there, spilling his guts. 

Once it’s all out and the stinging behind his eyes stops, Diego swipes the back of his hand across his mouth. It’s then he notices it, rushes to twist the faucet and wash it all away lest someone see. 

A darkness. Black and viscous. A look in the mirror shows the staining on his lips, where it’s dried around his nose. Just like the blackness that stained his bedroom carpet. 

Like the blackness that stained the walls of his dream. 

-:-

Diego doesn’t know that he’s screaming, only that everything hurts. 

It’s the middle of the night. He’s in his room, though he’s not alone. 

_They_ had been tormenting him all day. Creeping around and toying with his restraint, his patience. Snapping at Vanya and shoving Luther too hard in training. Biting at Allison with words he could hardly control and yelling at Klaus for no apparent reason. 

_Number Two,_ _They_ say, tiny pin pricks pulling at the inside of his flesh. _Let us out._

"No, no, I w-w-ww-want Five. W-Where's Five?" 

_Number Five is gone._

"Bring him back!"

Diego gasps, tiny, urgent breaths that leave his mouth in panicked groans. There is nothing, then everything all at once, and the feeling of it burns so much harder than when he found Five. 

“Two! Oh, shit, oh, fuck --- what? What do I do?”

Klaus is there, suddenly. At the foot of Diego’s bed, hands in his hair, he turns to an invisible presence and the thing inside Diego _screams._ Then he is gone.

Diego chokes, on nothing, on blood. On the feeling of it at the back of his throat, heating his gut. Something there shreds slowly, not a seering burn but a blinding agony. 

Diego is going to die. 

He knows this. He's always known it and the pain it would bring. 

“What the fuck-- _Mom!”_

Allison, maybe, Diego can’t tell. He whimpers, regardless, fisting his bedsheets for purchase, clenching his jaw so hard that his teeth feel as if they could crack. 

“Please.” He begs through the tightness of his muscles and the violent tremors that wrack them. “M-M-Make it ss-stop.”

Luther’s there too, hands on Diego like he can hold him down. He’s only there a moment before Diego’s foot sends him back with a powerful kick. 

“Vanya,” Luther says, voice ragged with something Diego doesn’t understand. “You don’t need to see this.”

“No, I want to help. Something… something’s so _wrong_ here.”

“Yeah, _no shit. I heard a rumour…”_ And there is fear in his sister’s voice, though it is distant. Diego quickly thinks that Allison has no idea what to say to make this better; what she does end up saying proves useless. 

_“I heard a rumour_ that you weren’t in pain.”

But Allison cannot conceive of the reach required to cease this pain. Across the universe and into other planes of existence, ones that she thought dead since their brother’s demise in winter. 

Diego manages to spit a few words out, though his chest heaves with the effort of it. 

“Sleep. M-MM-Make-- ”

And just as Allison appears to be getting his drift -- or as much as she can without knowing that sleep will provide him with the _Void’s_ reprieve --- Klaus returns with Mom in tow, and a pain so ferocious erupts at Diego’s core that he is forced to slam his body back against the bed over and over, as if to rid himself of it by his only means. 

Eyes watch him, helpless. Luther and Allison, frozen as they regard him, as if locked in a memory. 

Diego's being flayed alive, world upside down, flipped entirely on its axis, turning him inside out. 

This is what Ben knew. 

Klaus is talking to someone who’s not there, frantic and horrified, yelling above all the noise. 

“His stomach! It’s-- you have to do something, _please._ Dad! Oh my _god…_ ” The rest of what follows is mostly muffled by the press of Klaus’ hands to his face, like he can’t bear to watch. “It’s gonna explode.” 

Diego knows now. He understands what _They_ want and knows he cannot give it.

“Go, children!” Dad moves through the open doorway and pushes past each inhabitant of the crowded room. Too many people, they’re all going to get hurt. 

“Where does it hurt, boy?” Dad demands of him, a crease in his brow and something unfamiliar in his eyes. 

“Everyw-wh-- _Everywhere._ ” Diego’s breathing refuses to slow, his chest rising and falling at such a speed that his heart is racing far past any rate he can sustain. His next words claw on the way up, bloody, as though something -- _They_ \-- don’t want them to come out. 

“D-D-Da-- please. It hurts s- so bad.” With a rogue hand he grabs at the end of his father’s jacket. He’s going to die. _“They’re_ c-c-coming.”

Understanding does not dawn upon his father’s face, nor shock; only resignation. In the periphery, Klaus is screaming still, hands reaching for someone who’s not there. Dad looks between the two of them for no apparent reason, and Diego would very much like to shake his father into action. 

“Number Seven.” He finally says, rolling his cuffs up as far as his elbows. Vanya flinches to attention. “Take Number Four to the attic. Do not leave until I send Pogo.”

Vanya nods, and while Diego is grateful that she is leaving -- that she won’t be in danger --- _They_ scream for her and Klaus to stay. He bucks up in the bed again, though Luther’s managed to put some weight on his feet. He tries to kick his brother, but it is impossible for how Luther is currently sitting on him. 

“No, no, it’s gonna kill him.” Klaus hands drag down his face as Vanya tries to usher his much taller self from the room. “What do I _do?_ ”

_Stay. Number Four must stay._

Diego knows not why, only that the thoughts of Klaus leaving him here stir a fit of absolute and overwhelming fear in him.

“Four, _no!_ D-Don’t go, you-- you have to _stay.”_

Dad gestures to someone beyond Diego’s line of sight. His room is so _full._ “Leave now, Number Four! I will not say it again.”

“No-- ” Diego all but growls, torso shooting up in the bed only to be pinned back by someone he cannot see. “ _Stay._ ”

“Three.” Luther looks to Allison, who appears conflicted for only a few seconds before clearly coming to some immovable internal decision. 

“ _I heard a rumour…_ ” She turns to Klaus, whose eyes immediately turn a milky-white. “That you stayed with Vanya.”

In mere moments, Klaus is gone with Vanya. Diego howls at the loss of him, and thinks not of why his presence would matter, only that it _does._

“Deep breaths, darling.” It’s Mom who has him pinned by his shoulders, flat to the mattress. Between her and Luther, Diego can hardly move, though his hands still grab for anything they can cling onto.

“Let me _go._ ” He resents his mother in that moment, hatred welling within him that is foreign, that he never wishes to associate with her. Diego ignores the look she gives him, upside down with eyes glazed by an unfamiliar sheen, and struggles with all his might to be free of both her and Luther’s grasps. 

“Temperature, Grace.” His father demands, making quick work of unbuttoning Diego’s pajama shirt. 

“Fluctuating, Sir. I can’t quite get a read on it.”

“Well, keep at it. Number One, hold firm.”

Luther nods, Diego glaring viciously at him. He feels the heat of his father’s palms --- nothing like Mom’s, that are often cold to the touch --- flat against his stomach. There, pain ignites, and _Their_ whispers turn into screams. 

Behind Dad, Allison looks on in horror as Diego writhes in his bed. Pogo attempts to draw her gaze elsewhere, but Diego’s wills her to remain. He fixes her with a look he can only hope means more to her than anyone else; that she can’t _leave_ him, that he needs her to do what he asked of her before Klaus brought an entire audience into his room. 

“ _Let me go. Let me go. Let me go._ ” 

The words are guttural and not his own. But they leave his mouth without a single stutter. Dad looks intrigued and presses harder against Diego’s stomach, to the point where the pain blinds him and he can no longer bear the pressure of their collective hold. 

“Let. Me. _Go._ ”

His arms fly wild, beyond Mom’s scope of restraint, and grab at his father’s clothes. Dad, who presses, keeps pressing until Diego can hardly stand it, until _They_ try to war against him as if he is like Ben, as if he will survive _Their_ inevitable escape from his chest. 

“ _Sir._ ” Pogo insists from somewhere far away. Dad ignores him. 

“Number Three.” He removes a hand from Diego and reaches back to grab Allison by her shoulder. Allison, who looks to Luther for support; who _won’t_ look at Diego. Dad whispers something in her ear, a request no doubt, that Diego’s eyes beg her to refuse. Allison’s own eyes widen, a hand rising to cover her mouth. Tears spill forth and Diego chokes out his last-ditch effort at winning her over.

“A-Allie, _please._ Please.” Let him sleep, let him go to the _Void._ There, _They_ will be able to sink _Their_ teeth in, but at least it won’t hurt so much anymore. 

“Number Three, do as you are told at _once._ ”

But Allison shrugs Dad’s hand off, falling back a step and sparing Luther a swift glance as she edges towards the door. 

“I can’t… I can’t _do_ this.”

Luther lifts slightly from where he rests on Diego’s legs. “Allison-- ”

“No!” She yells, but when Diego’s arms reach to take her back, Mom grabs them, fixing them to his sides with her surprising strength. “I’m _done._ ”

Allison storms out the door, and gone with her is Diego’s last hope of salvation. Pain consumes every inch of him, burning fiercely as if he might soon melt from his own bones. 

Dad sighs like Allison’s dramatic exit is little more than a minor inconvenience and resumes in his pushing and pressing, despite how Diego’s throat chokes out strangled yells, begging him to stop, begging them to let him go. 

They do not. And it is only when Dad finds himself seemingly unsatisfied by his exploration of Diego’s condition --- Mom facilitates this, Luther can hardly watch --- that any of this feels even remotely close to an end. 

The pain has not yielded and it won’t, not until _They_ are let out. Diego tells them this, gasping with each of his hurried breaths, sweating and jerking, openly crying for it all to be over (even if that means death. Especially if that means he will see Ben again). 

“Sir,” Pogo sidles in once more, eyes sadder than Diego’s ever seen them, holding a syringe out for his father to see. “I believe this would be best.”

That seals the deal. 

If pain was what he felt before, then this is something else entirely. His chest must be splintering in two, a gaping fissure surely widening for all to see. When Diego’s chin falls to his chest, head jerking around mercilessly, so fast it feels like whiplash, it is to see black fluid congealed here. It sits on his tongue, drips from his nose. Something disturbs the skin of his abdomen and Luther leans over to dry heave. 

Diego screams and screams and it feels as if that is all he has ever done. A lifetime of it ripping from his throat. Something inside him snaps and spills and the world becomes another place entirely, a place he does not recognise even from the worst of dreams. 

Mom hums a familiar tune above his head and Luther’s facing the other direction. Pogo is an anxious shadow he can no longer see and Dad still towers above him; a look on his face that Diego will later attribute to fear. 

He takes the syringe from Pogo, and were his hands free, Diego would have clawed it from his father’s grasp. Were his powers even remotely operational, the syringe would be on the other side of the room, crushed by its speedy impact with Diego’s bedroom wall. 

But nothing is ever as Diego wants it to be --- as the things _inside_ him want it to be --- so it is that the syringe sinks into the thin skin of his neck and slowly, so slowly, the world slips away from him. 

Slowly, _They_ lose control too. 

It’s the pain that lasts the longest, that lingers well into unconsciousness. But at least, in this brief and blurred moment, he can tell himself that this was the worst of it. He can lie to himself, and say that things will only go up from here. 

-:-

He blinks into life between beeps, though he cannot move an inch. The world is now in blinding white. 

"Internal bleeding has slowed, Sir." Mom is somewhere close by, her tone absent of any warmth that she saves just for him. 

Dad clears his throat. "Very well. Conduct another scan tomorrow to be certain."

"Yes, Sir."

A blink, and the beeps start again. Uneven in their rhythm at first, the light in the room is warmer too, like the sun is at its lowest in the sky. 

"I _implore_ you, Sir." Pogo is here now, rasping voice hushed in its urgency. "First with Master Five and now this? The boy cannot handle the Horror. He was not meant to be its vessel."

“Be that as it may, Pogo, there is perhaps another way in which we can utilise Number Two’s new… _connection_ to our advantage.”

“And to what end, Sir? His _death?_ Who knows what other forces may elect to try their hand at possessing him. There are entities in the universe far beyond our comprehension --- I would hate for Number Two to fall prey to the unknown due to our need for more.” A sigh. “Perhaps this is as far as Master Diego can go and we ought to draw the line now, like we did with Number Se-- ”

“No.” There are so many words falling together in dragging sentences that Diego is struggling to wrap his mind around it. Dad’s objection is loud, grating above all. The strings return to Diego in some regard, for he can feel how his father and Pogo move around him, how Mom lingers in the background, busying herself with medical equipment. 

“This is not a case of hubris, Pogo. There is nothing but knowledge to be gained from the exploration from Number Two’s condition. It evolves, as you’ve seen, and if we cannot understand it, then we cannot ever hope to contain it.”

“But what is to be _lost,_ Sir?”

It’s a dream that Diego will forget when he wakes, that he will question the reality of along with the feeling of hands holding his own, tears soaking his gown, the smell of Allison’s perfume and a parting kiss to the cheek. 

And when he does eventually wake, there is no warmth to him, despite the afternoon’s golden sun that shines upon his face. In some bitter parallel, Diego is once more alone, though this time feels far more striking than the last. 

The Horror is gone, he thinks, but something else has been taken from him. Stripped away for him to be left raw and unmoored. There is far more to be taken still, mercilessly, without any shot at a goodbye. 

Dad makes Mom tell him. He is a coward, though Diego no longer feels anger towards his father for this. He truly fails to feel much of anything; and he knows, without ever needing to be told, that this kind of numbness is not the kind that is supposed to spare pain, but is intended to stop any feeling at all. 

“Isn’t it lovely?” Mom smiles his way as she packs his bags, nodding to the pamphlet she’d handed him when he finally made the journey from the infirmary to his bedroom. “Plenty to keep my darling boy busy.”

Mom hardly believes her own words, that much is clear. It tells Diego they are not her own. 

“W-W-Where are the others?”

He hasn’t seen them. Not since-- well, since he was sedated. He remembers little of that time, though their faces are most prominent in his memory. Diego aches to see them, any of them; even Luther would suffice.

This aching is an unfamiliar thing, for everything else has been dulled to the point of no longer existing. Diego is not angry, nor is he worried about what is to come, he is only blue. He is crying too, though he fails to notice until the run of a tear salts his tongue. 

“A field trip.” She answers automatically, her smile wide and completely plastic. “But don’t worry, Diego. I’ll tell them where to write you.” Upon noting his distress, Mom drops what she was once folding and comes to stand before him, cold hands pressed to either side of his face.

“Shinyview.” She beams; cherry red and lavender and all the things he’s about to lose. “Now, won’t that be an adventure?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw:  
> -accidental self-harm  
> -heavy gore  
> -medical trauma  
> -vomiting  
> -mild suicidal ideation
> 
> i feel like i tried to cram so much into this one. but we're moving on from the academy now and things are about to develop in major ways for diego (for all of them, thank god). also i know there is a lot of repetition in this chapter, but i promise it was a conscious thing. diego is drugged and disassociating for a lot of it, obviously, and the horror has a lot to do with it, but also it kind of feels like they keep throwing the same things at the void and expecting it to change (when really it's evolving), so it's like this weird cycle. 
> 
> this idea of the horror, for lack of a better term, "possessing" diego, is something that's been sitting with me since i first started writing this. if you think of his connection to the void as something along the lines of astral projection, and the fact that thus far he can seemingly access people at other points in time (coUGH five), then it's not that much of a stretch that the horror might latch onto a familiar vessel (diego) that They can actually access (and have probably been thinking about as a back-up for quite a while now, maybe even since ben told diego that "they like it cold" idkidk) esp since the idea seems to be that the horror is from another dimension, to which ben was the gate. the void, while it can often cushion diego's trauma and cause him to disassociate, also leaves him rather vulnerable physically. so the horror latched onto that and also went absolutely haywire every time klaus was around, because klaus conjured ben at the funeral and They could sense his presence. 
> 
> i spent hours on superpower wiki trying to make this all make sense, so i hope it does!! lmk what you think or if this is complete nonsense rip. 
> 
> chapter title is from the beatles' song of the same name, which also happens to be the tune that grace was humming to diego while they all uh... held him down. i feel like that's a nice thing to know. and this is the [painting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Beheading_Holofernes_\(Caravaggio\)#/media/File:Judith_Beheading_Holofernes_-_Caravaggio.jpg) that diego slashes, which is a canon detail i just HAD to include.


	18. the only way out is through.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It hits him all at once. A hit that he should have seen coming, a projectile that got lost in the fray and is far too close to be stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything in this is fairly canon-typical. diego is institutionalised, gaslighted, and touched/drugged without his consent quite a bit in this chapter, but it is no worse than anything in previous chapters.

_“The word “home”, flaming_  
_And burning to the ground,_  
_is punched down my throat_  
_So far I can barely taste_  
_The smoke. My lungs are made_  
_Of soot. I was bred on this pain._  
_I’ll snort the ashes to stay awake.”_

**House Fire, Isa 2016**

* * *

Shinyview Psychiatric Hospital is squeaky clean, not at all like he expected. An array of colours, an assault on the senses that comes to meet him in his grey clothes, the ones Mom bought for him so he'd fit in with the other patients. 

Not that it matters, because he hasn't seen a single other patient since setting foot in the place. 

"So, this is the nurses' station, if you need anything at all."

Diego nods and tries to keep up with the nurse who isn't even looking at him. Her name is Geraldine and she's got a little, white hat on like in the few movies they were allowed to see as children. Behind him, two orderlies walk -- one bearded and the other bare. Although Diego's head is foggy and his senses feel dulled, he knows by the faint mark of their strings that they are a few inches away from touching him at all times; like they're afraid he'll bolt. 

He can hardly _walk,_ let alone run. 

They've given him new shoes, ones without laces that do little to keep the cold away, and they squeak against the floor with each step he takes. Geraldine talks and talks and Diego can hardly hear her, by the ringing in his ears that has returned to him once more and the fact that none of it matters -- his father wouldn't have sent him here for a vacation. This is all a facade, it _has_ to be. So, while they walk, his eyes dart to each window and door, each potential exit, because if this is a test he needs to pass it. 

"And here's the pool!" 

Geraldine's exclamation jolts Diego from his prior focus. She's gesturing towards a large room, all bright lights and slick, spotless tiles; entirely unlike their pool at home. 

"Sir Reginald told us that you _love_ the water."

Diego looks at her with a blank expression, so Geraldine coughs. He doesn't know what it is that he's supposed to say. Do they know about his powers? Why would a regular psychiatric facility know about those things, especially when they can't possibly help him with any of it? What if this is part of the test and he'll be punished for revealing anything to these ordinary people who know nothing of what it means to have powers and how damn hard it is to control them?

Mom would have told him, surely, but she had said next to nothing as the pair of them waited for Abhijat to bring the car around. 

The others were still off on their field trip -- even _Vanya_ \-- but he had felt Pogo ambling around the house; not as clear as usual, for everything felt off and far from his grasp. Pogo hadn’t come to say goodbye either -- not even when Mom dragged her own hugs and kisses out for so long that Diego felt as if she wasn’t quite ready to let him go. 

“I’m c-c-coming back, _Mom._ ” He’d told her, hand squeezing her own. For a moment, the synthetic skin had felt warm, like there was a pulse in her palm, like hers was a string he could hold onto. 

“Of course you are, my darling.” She’d only smiled, a blinding thing that still failed to reach her eyes. 

Mom wouldn't keep something so important from him. Any special instructions from Dad would have been given to Diego through her, but nothing had been said aside from the fact that Diego was going to this place -- Shinyview -- and that he would be staying there until he felt better. 

And what does that even mean? _Better._ Diego doesn't feel much of anything apart from a twinge in his side, a vague aching in his stomach that is more a whisper of pain than anything else, lending to his stiff and stilted movements. 

Still, it worries him to think about. The phantom of how much it hurt, how even now it feels like such an abstract concept, when at the time he thought that the Horror intended to split him clean in half. 

_They_ still could, he thinks, fingers gripping the soft cotton of his sweater. You are cold enough, you are there for the taking. You touched _Them_ when you were not meant to and now _They_ can reach you forever. 

As wrapped up as Diego is in these thoughts, how they hit him like relentless waves, he doesn't notice that his breath has quickened by quite an amount. Geraldine is all up in his face suddenly, the orderlies closer behind him, crowding, but none of them touch him. 

"Number Two." Geraldine says, placating and hesitant. "Are you quite alright?"

"My-My stomach hurts." Diego says without thinking, eyes falling to regard his fists and how they scramble at his sweater (where Dad had put his hands and pressed _hard)._

"Okay." Geraldine says and it's a faraway sound. She must have said something to the orderlies, because when Diego blinks, they each have an arm on him, walking him briskly along the corridor, following Geraldine's path 

“We’re going to your room now, Number Two.”

His feet are dragging a little and when he scrambles to right them beneath his frame, the orderlies only shift their grip. It’s like having a Luther either side of him, practised in restraint and bruising in their grip.

When Geraldine uses a key to open the metal door before them, whatever feeling part of Diego that has been suppressed since he woke up in the infirmary back home, sparks with a fraction of glee. A _lock_ he can pick, no problem. This must be a test, then -- Dad has literally trained him for it.

“We’ve already unpacked your things for you, books and the like. The knives had to be confiscated, I’m afraid. Though _Lord_ knows why anyone would have packed them for you.” 

Geraldine moves to a cabinet on the left as the orderlies deposit Diego on the bed at the very centre of the room. They step back then and allow him to slouch while Geraldine approaches with a tray, clearly something she had prepared earlier.

There is a paper cup filled with water. Next to it a smaller one; Diego doesn’t need to look at it to know what it contains.

"You must swallow these pills, Number Two. We'll check every time."

When they were younger, before the debut of the Umbrella Academy, before fame and murder and plunging into rivers, Dad had prepared them for such things. 

Studying Harry Houdini, Herr Carlson, botanists and anthropologists and scientists that had all died before Diego and his siblings were even born. Detecting poison in his food, hiding drugs in his mouth to avoid swallowing them -- these were all things Diego had learned in place of schoolyard games, of sports and make believe. 

He wonders if that is what he's meant to do: pretend. If it's part of the test to see if his training has remained intact; to see if the _incident_ has impacted his ability to be part of the Academy. 

Would his father be so obvious? Would he expect Diego to be? Surely, they will notice. Currently, Diego is lethargic and absent -- his movements lack their typical dexterity, and his hands refuse to stop shaking -- but the staff of Shinyview have nothing to compare that with. 

They do not know of Diego in his prime, only as he is now. While his siblings might believe that, in his current state he is as drugged as he could possibly be -- on the pain medication Mom had given to him prior to leaving -- the nurses will be looking for signs, for proof of change in the medication they force him to take. 

It stands to reason, then, that he must take them for the purpose of study. So that later, when he conceals the pills between the inside of his lip and the fronts of his teeth, he can mimic these side effects, making the nurses believe that he is well and truly at their mercy. 

"Wha-What do they do?" 

Geraldine's patience is clearly dwindling, but she smiles still, a forced thing. From the bottom of his bed she retrieves a clipboard, flips the plastic cover back with little care and begins skimming over the details before her. 

"They’ll help you relax and sleep." She summarises, and he's about to ask for more when she clears her throat again, placing the clipboard back on his bed frame. "Sort out that awful stammer of yours too, and the tics."

"I d-d-d-- " Diego pauses and swallows, regarding the small paper cup before him, containing two identical white pills, less than Geraldine gave reason for. "I don't _have_ tics."

"Your _father_ says you do."

Geraldine poses this like a challenge, haughty and with a turn of the nose. Diego wants to rise to it, push back and refuse to take these pills that he doesn't need, but in all his brief examination of the facility's corridors, he has yet to discover an escape route. They must think he's compliant, that he believes this bullshit they’re spouting about what his father says he needs. 

Dad never cared about whether or not Diego could sleep, only that he was prepared to train and do his work at every sunrise. The relaxants only came when the Horror did, when Diego was incapable of doing his job and providing information for dad's clients. He's no longer doing that, he's not doing anything, so why would Dad even _bother?_

“Take your medicine now, Number Two.”

Diego does, dry. When Geraldine dons a glove and begins to poke around in his mouth, makes him curl his tongue back and show her that nothing lies beneath, he doesn’t object. He complies, easy and loose, entirely of his own volition and little to do with the drugs that are slowly working their way through his system. 

If they take effect, he hardly notices. Geraldine rambles before him, about rules, about bedtime and mealtimes, and the sunlight reflects brilliantly off the turquoise walls, dappled through the leaves on the single tree beyond his tiny window; like they’re all underwater. 

There is a sharp taste on his tongue, a coating from the powdery pills. For a moment, it tastes a lot like blood, so Diego drains the remainder of the water from his cup before Geraldine takes it away. 

She’s talking to him still, wrinkled face pinched up like she’s eaten something sour. He should ask her, really, if that’s what she’s talking about. If everything is supposed to feel funny. If he can call his mother now. 

He mouths the words like he often used to in the dark of his bedroom, he’s ready for them to come out. Diego finally asks these things of Geraldine and all she does is look back at him, vacant and without answer. The door closes and locks and she is gone, the glass slit at eye level is blank too, shut to the light that had once beamed in from the corridor. 

It’s darker when Diego looks again; when he finds his hands twisted up in the white sheets, thinking that the feel of them might be akin to the hand of another. He is alone now, entirely. His stomach does not ache at all and feels like nothing. A peek tells him it's bound and wrapped up tightly in gauze, clothed by a cotton jumper and joggers that cuff his ankles and wrists without cutting them. 

There is familiarity in this: the turquoise deepening as the night bleeds in through his room, as the light fades and the branches outside slap against the bars of his window. The absolute silence that swallows up any potential for sound, drowns it out and leaves nothing but the white noise of the night. 

This is it. This should be enough. But when Diego closes his eyes and reaches for the place where he can find any living soul, where he can see his siblings and his mother through them, he is left wanting. 

He reaches for the _Void,_ but it is nowhere to be found. 

-:-

“I heard you had a bit of a panic yesterday.”

It’s not a question, so Diego doesn’t bother with an answer. He looks away, towards the windows. They’re bigger than the one in his room, with plenty of trees and enough clouded sky outside that the inner city isn’t a likely location. 

The doctor tries again. She is younger than Dad and older than Mom, with dark hair and dark skin, and an expression that effectively conceals any affectation. 

She doesn’t wear a white coat like he had expected, nor any kind of signifiers that psychiatric medicine is indeed her profession. But she had introduced herself as such -- Doctor Monroe, no first name, no handshake. 

“Nurse Geraldine told me that your stomach was hurting. Is that true?”

Diego shrugs, because plenty has happened since then. Breakfast that sat like lead on his tongue, two pills in a cup that he was forced to swallow, and an orderly following him into the bathroom in case he tried to do something rash while brushing his teeth. 

“Do-D-Don’t you trust Nurse Geraldine?”

“Do you?”

“I hardly know her.”

“Well, I suppose we’re in the same boat, then. But I’d rather hear these things from you, Number Two.”

The orderlies haven’t spoken to him yet, but they talk to each other. The bearded, big one told the slightly less big one that Diego has lunch right after his session with the doctor, and then tonnes of free time. He thinks of that while Monroe scrutinises him, thick framed glasses looking clunky on her face, hair pulled back in the way Vanya sometimes wears it while she’s practising, sleeves rolled up to her elbows. 

“Do you know why you’re here, Number Two?”

That’s the real question, something he hasn’t pondered much since his arrival yesterday; since the realisation hit him that this is likely a test, one he doesn’t know _how_ to pass. 

It feels a little like he’s being made to do things and only thinking about what they mean hours, if not days, after the fact. Sometimes, not at all. Diego wonders if that’s how Mom feels. Does she just do things without thought, as if doing otherwise never occurs to her? 

Before, he would have fought it, within reason, at least. Diego’s not rebellious by nature, only when he feels there’s cause to be. Foolish defiance like Klaus’ never made much sense to him, or the prideful kind, like Five. 

For the most part, all Diego has wanted is to be left alone. To go about his day in relative peace, do his combat training and best Number One, perhaps read some comics with Klaus in the evening, listen to Vanya perfect her latest Tchaikovsky piece while Allison does her best to coax them all into her games without needing to use her last resort. 

None of this feels attainable, not anymore. Very few things have been within Diego’s reach since he first woke up in the infirmary, bandaged around his torso, Mom’s sweet face beaming down upon him. Just Mom, no one else.

He never even got to say goodbye to them.

“I… I sh-- I _shouldn’t_ be here.”

Doctor Monroe says nothing. Before, Diego might have seethed at this, allowing the frustration to swallow him up. Before, he might have taken all of those bad feelings and put them somewhere else, somewhere forever reaching and infinite, where he can find everything and little can find him. 

But that is no longer an option. 

“I think… I’m feeling better, r-r-really. The m-m-me-medicine w-worked.”

It did nothing but slow him down, roll him out and pummel him over. Dad hates such things, likens it to Klaus illegally acquiring substances on the streets. Hell, Dad tried to pass off Diego’s _pneumonia_ as a cold and wouldn’t even give him cough syrup for it. He’s going to be in so much trouble when his father finds out about what Geraldine gave him. 

“There’s no need for- for me to take it anymore.” He assures the doctor, nodding. “I’m r-r-r-ready to go home.”

“No, you’re not.” She responds, plain and even. “We have much to work on, Number Two.”

“No.” He is adamant. “W-We don’t.”

“Your father gave me a list. Would you like me to read it to you?”

He shakes his head, one of those actions that come without thought. Diego doesn’t wish to delve into why hearing what his father wishes him to work on is a terrible idea. He can’t even begin to wrap his head around how long that list might be, how scathing. Dad’s never held back in his admonishments, in how Diego disappoints him; he’s always made it abundantly clear, a well known fact between himself and Diego’s siblings. Monroe passing this off as if it’s casual information to be dispensed on a whim is startling, frightens him into the truth of the matter, which is that Dad sent him here because there is something _wrong_ with him.

Dad sent him here to be _fixed._

Monroe seems to think that the shake of his head suffices and forgoes the list, instead removing a paper pad from her desk. 

“W-What are you wr-wr-writing?”

She looks down at the paper, then back up to Diego. “Notes.”

“For who?”

Maybe she thinks he won’t catch it, but Diego notices the near imperceptible quirk of her mouth and brows. 

“For myself. These conversations will be private, Number Two.” _That’s_ a lie. “I am here to provide you and your father with results. He does not require updates.”

Her gaze is gauging, pen poised to jot down more. Diego doesn’t react, only folds his arms across his chest once more and grips his right elbow fiercely. Each breath must be measured, lest they get away from him. Perhaps it is best not to breathe at all, as there’s a sensation that crushes him at the mention of his father, and it’s not something he is capable of exploring in such a setting, with these unfamiliar pills in his system. 

“You will have speech therapy with Nurse Geraldine every other day from three-thirty until dinner. I believe that much progress can be made in that regard, coupled with regular doses of the appropriate medication, of course…”

What if Dad dropped him here without anything but repair in mind? Maybe there is no test, and Diego was foolish enough to think that this was a challenge, another way for him to prove his worth and rise in the ranks towards Number One. 

But no, Dad will want him to prevail. Dad wanted him back on the missions, representing the Umbrella Academy. Dad needs him for appointments with his clients, to find people and maintain the notion that they exist as something separate and valuable, something _extraordinary._

Doctor Monroe carries on as if she hasn’t noticed a single thing amiss, and Diego thinks of nothing but his return. How _fortunate_ he is that Dad has granted him this time to pull himself together, to rid himself of any malevolent influences and return home to complete his duties as a hero. 

There is no alternative, no hidden agenda, only clear instruction. Diego must return to the Academy. He cannot let his father down.

How naive he sounds.

“So, how is that, Number Two? Are you up to the task?”

“Yes, m-ma’am.”

-:-

“Get into the bath, Number Two.”

The strings tangle as Diego flails. Three orderlies, now, pinning him in place as his legs kick as his head knocks back. 

If it weren’t for the pills, for how they make his moves so sluggish, how he never has time to react, Diego would have these three lumbering idiots knocked on their asses in no more than a minute. Maybe if he can manage it, Doctor Monroe will tell his father, who will see that Diego is more than capable of returning to the field, that he is ready to come _home._

He’s told them _no,_ repeatedly; asked for a shower instead, even washing himself over the sink would do. It’s nothing like what they’re thinking, though -- his stomach doesn’t hurt in the slightest and no mysterious presence or force is influencing his unwillingness to take a bath, it’s simply that Diego doesn’t _want_ to. 

The notion of sitting in any amount of water for any amount of time is too much. Nurse Geraldine points to the metal tub like it’s nothing, clipboard held fiercely against her chest, where she had noted all of his vitals after making him strip to his underwear and vest. 

She isn’t the forgiving kind, Diego has learned, and her scowl only seems to deepen with each day that passes. Her disdain for him shows itself blatantly in how she nips at his heels in the corridor, sheers his head far shorter than Mom ever dared to, and how, this morning, she had done enough rooting around in his mouth to realise that he hasn’t been taking his pills. 

Geraldine had been mad, so mad, but restrained still in a way that she obviously felt spoke of professionalism. She’d dragged him to another room then, to poke and prod in a way that was reminiscent of his father, and to then force him into bathing, when Diego had made it abundantly clear that he was not at all willing to do so. 

“The water will remain shallow until you get those ruddy bandages off for good, Number Two, there is nothing to fret over.”

Not shallow enough. The sliver of water that graces the _Void_ is the only acceptable amount, that hardly rises above his toes and reflects the blackness all around. But the lights are bright here and the orderlies’ hands feel like cuffs and chains, bolting him in place and holding him in a vice in the centre the bathing room, where he is exposed past the open windows, under the harsh light of the bulbs above, under the scrutiny of Geraldine; with her old hands that belie her strength, her severity, with her clipboard, where she takes note of each little thing that is wrong with him and will no doubt pass it onto his father.

“Let me have a sh- a shower.” 

“Showers are not permitted at Shinyview,” She dismisses. “You must have a bath.”

Diego seethes, going slack in the orderlies’ grip. It’s taking too much energy to be at constant war with them, but the full weight of him isn’t an easy thing for them to carry, either. 

While Mom told him that he’d gained much of his weight back from when he was sick, Diego has little to compare it to regarding what’s considered normal for his age, beyond what she tells him and the fact that the only one of his siblings who is heavier than him is Luther. Still, it throws them for a loop and three sets of hands struggle to keep him up, even more so when his limbs flop from their grip like an old ragdoll. 

“I’m not al-allowed to take b-b-baths.” 

“I do not ca-- ”

“Oh, fuck y-- ” 

Perhaps it is the sheer strength of his will that causes it to happen, because much like many things nowadays, Diego has little control over how he moves. Which is why there is no possible way for him to _not_ curve the slap she fires at him. Geraldine’s wrist twists at an awkward angle and her palm swerves, mere inches from colliding with Diego’s face. 

The orderlies remain still and slack in shock for as long as it takes Geraldine to recover, and it is then that he is certain they must know the extent of at least _one_ of his powers, for how she regards him with a look of absolute horror. 

“Sedate him.” She says, and Diego is not quick enough after such a strenuous move to deflect a needle that he cannot yet see. 

So it is that the world slips from beneath his feet with a prick to his arm, and that the orderlies lift him and dump him in the tub, where he is greeted by the water once more. 

-:-

"They d-d-d-- never give me any knives. With my food."

Therapy gets tedious pretty fast. Monroe pokes at places Diego is not willing to go, feelings he ought not revisit. It’s become a stalemate of sorts, wherein they often spend large chunks of time sitting in total silence. Typically, she breaks first, perhaps out of obligation to at least seem like she’s doing her job. Today, it’s Diego who cracks, willing to bring up such trivial things if it means he’s able to exert some of his current frustrations. 

Monroe laughs, though it’s composed mainly of bitterness. "Well, I'm afraid your reputation precedes you."

"So w-what? I'm 'sposed to just eat like- like a _baby?_ The forks are made of fucking p-pl-plastic."

He could do the same amount of damage with the fork, if that's what they're worried about. There are plenty of items in his room that he could have harmed any of them with by now if he so wished. Not that he’s tried to do such things with drugs in his system (the incident with Geraldine was more instinct than intent), but his abilities in combat have little to do with his powers.

Even if they were to let him go a few rounds with a punching bag, have a run in the supposedly bountiful outdoor space that he’s not yet seen, Diego might be able to gauge how capable he is of returning to the field once he’s sent back home. 

He’s not like Luther, whose primary focus is technique -- Diego has to _maintain_ his strength, condition his body into a state of peak fitness. While his stamina is aided greatly by his lack of a need for air, he still gets tired, particularly after being sick or injured. It’s almost like they’re trying to stifle his progress and render him entirely useless. It’s a _joke._

The look Monroe levels him with is one Diego can't read. His chest is heaving and his fingers are pinching the arms of his chair with such force that the skin there is red. It’s overwhelming how trapped he feels in this situation, where he lacks every bit of control he did back home, but it’s now worsened by the fact that each day feels much like a cloud that smothers him, renders him incapable of accessing any of his powers. 

If he threw his cutlery at the orderlies or Nurse Geraldine, he’d miss by a mile. It’s if they get too close -- that’s when he can do some _real_ damage. 

"Did you sleep well last night, Number Two?"

He halts in his movements, limbs prone to their current state as he recalls the night prior. Scratchy sheets that offered no comfort and the constant _thwacking_ of the branches against the bars on his window. 

His room is always cold, for some reason, far colder than any other room he’s been in at the facility. And while his powers feel as though they’re caught under thick layers of cotton wool, Diego can _feel_ the presence of the orderlies who guard his door, like they’re afraid of him escaping in the night, when the thought of stealing Geraldine’s keys hasn’t occurred to him at all since his first day at Shinyview.

They never look through the panel in the door, though. Diego’s not foolish enough to think that he’s been granted privacy in this place; even back home, it was an unspoken rule that they were to always leave doors open a crack. Of course, doors were shut and slammed and even locked by the likes of Klaus, but this illusion of privacy was regularly shattered by the shared knowledge that their father had a masterkey. 

Diego’s current door locks from the outside, and though his flimsy shelf and bed might be enough to block it, everything in his room is bolted to the floor. And while the door panel is not used for viewing, they must have a camera somewhere (which he intends to look for after lights out), because once writhing and kicking his blankets up wasn’t enough to coax his body into sleep the night before and he’d resorted to push ups on the linoleum, his door had slammed open to reveal Geraldine, poised with a rather large syringe and a scowl that tightened with each demand she made. 

He doesn’t remember much after that. 

“Geraldine not tell you?” He asks of Monroe, clipped and lacking any of his prior frustration.

“ _Nurse_ Geraldine,” Monroe begins, “told me that you were fitful, so she administered a dose of Amobarbital at approximately 11pm, and you fell asleep.”

Diego hums, “I w-w-wouldn’t c-call it sleeping.”

“You were rested, though, yes?”

He shrugs, intent on not validating her treatment. Ten hours of unconsciousness that only left him when one of the orderlies rattled him awake and forced him into the bathroom can hardly constitute as rest, but it’s nothing Diego’s not used to. 

“Do you typically sleep well, Number Two? In the mansion?”

_The mansion._ Is that how outsiders refer to their home? It sounds so grand for something that is only attractive at surface level. A blanket of glamour over things that are dark and unspoken, it is bizarre to Diego that he himself even grants it the title of ‘home’. 

“I tr-- I train a lot.” He tells Monroe. “Sometimes that m-m-means dedi-dedicating extra hours.”

“How many hours?”

To which he shrugs again, because what’s there to say? That even on the nights where Diego finds himself free of obligation, sleep evades him. That he is so accustomed to scraping by with the bare minimum in terms of rest that he has no idea what to do with all of this _time_ where he’s supposed to just lay around. 

“What does this training entail?”

This has to be a trick. Another test of his loyalty. Regardless of that, Diego simply doesn’t wish to discuss what happens in his training, what he writes in his journals. Nor does he wish to invoke any potential consequences that may result from him spilling the beans. 

He aims for amicable and looks Doctor Monroe right in her eyes, so as to not be caught in a lie. 

“All the things you w-w-would imagine.”

Looking almost amused by this, Monroe places her pen on the desk to regard him fully. 

“Like…?”

“Like… like physics and biology.”

“You stay up late to _train_ in physics and biology?”

Diego looks away again. “I’m slow.” He admits with a touch of hesitance, like this is the secret he’s keeping from her. “And I need to know about pr-r-ressure points and arteries. For m-my knives.”

“Your father never mentioned that. Actually, he said that you are perfectly capable academically.”

“He did?” Diego asks before he can think to stop himself. 

Again, Monroe is smiling, and Diego feels a lot like he’s playing right into her hand. 

“Yes.” She looks at her notes. “He also informed me of your proficiency in Jujutsu, Sambo, Bartitsu, Mu--Ma-- ”

“Muay Thai.” Diego completes for her. 

Monroe nods. “Among other things. Do you use your knives for them?”

“No, but I use m-my knives as muh-much as possible. But I’m not d-d-dependent on them.”

“Hmm.”

The doctor is quiet for a while after that and Diego is filled with the sense that he has said something wrong. She’s taking notes and still, he fears that they will return to his father, despite her earlier claims. 

Then, quite suddenly: “Why wouldn’t you get in the bath on Sunday?”

Every stilted thought he has slams to a stop. The fog clears and everything becomes sharp, far too focused for him to bear. 

“I d-d-do-- I d-d--- ” 

Somewhere, deep down, Diego is aware that Doctor Monroe must _know._ She knows about the knives, and maybe Geraldine neglected to mention the attempted slap to save her own skin, but Monroe is _smart._ She has the tact of his mother and the cunning of his father and she’s reading Diego in every second of every session that they have together. It’s something he needs to be careful of. 

“I’m not sup-supposed to. It’s not safe.”

“And why is that?”

Diego knows why. It seems easy from the outside, to simply _think_ it, but to have his whole being disrupted by an external force that wanted to tear him open means that the topic should never be broached for risk of what that might trigger. 

What if whatever Dad and Mom and Pogo did wasn’t enough, and the Ho-- _They_ find him in this facility full of civilians? Rationally, his inability to access the _Void_ should be assurance enough that it won’t happen again, but water provides the perfect conditions, and he has no one around who _understands_ and can convince him that it’s going to be okay. 

The gauze around his stomach feels tight, like an armour. _They_ won’t find _Their_ way to him again, he just has to be strong. He has to zip it all away, trap it somewhere else for as long as the _Void_ remains unavailable.

“My- My Mom, she said I’m not ‘sposed to get my bandages w-w-wet.”

_I’m afraid of the water,_ is what he ought to say. _I’m afraid of the one thing that can probably take me back to the_ Void.

Back to where _They_ might be waiting. 

“Well, I’m afraid baths are compulsory here at Shinyview.” Monroe dismisses, ending the session. “Your bandages will be off soon, but I’ll see what I can do about adjusting your medication to make things a little easier, hm?”

That is how manners will proceed for the following months: medication at the crux of everything. 

Small, white pills that smother the world. The injections are for sleep, for sedation, to tranquilise and relax him. They are sporadic, delivered when needed, but the pills are a constant. Regimental and enforced, particularly after the last time he was caught not swallowing them. 

There is no avoiding them, no pretending, for he cannot mimic the kind of prevention they provide. He’s never been able to stop the _Void_ from taking what it’s wanted from him, but somehow, these pills manage to do the job. 

_It’s for your own good,_ he’s told, time and time again. Diego knows this, knows that it’s for the good of everyone, but he can’t help the feeling of loss, a pervasive mourning that consumes him at the notion despite his overwhelming fear.

He thinks of the _Void_ and finds himself longing. 

-:-

_Dear Diego,_

_We're not meant to write to you, but Mom gave me your address and it's not as if Dad is ever going to find out. I’m mailing this from the train station, if it comforts you at all. I always thought it suspicious that we never won any of those crossword competitions when we were kids. I suppose they were never sent._

_I'm going to college. It's in Boston, though I'm not sure I'll like it there. As you already know, I'm not as well travelled as the rest of you, so I figured it best not to go too far afield for my first big trip away from home. I'm not the only one leaving; Allison has too. She left right before you did, actually. She said we'll keep in touch, but you know how Allison is. Still, it's the thought that counts, I guess._

_I hope you're doing okay. I know you probably won't be able to answer this but is it nice where you are? Are they treating you well? Pogo told me that you're making progress, but I just want to be sure. We want you to get better, Diego, though we're all pretty bad at showing it. Mom misses you the most, I think. She won't say it, but I see her making you hot water bottles at night and walking to your room like she thinks you're still there. She probably doesn't understand what's going on, but maybe you can explain it to her when you get back? Maybe you can explain it to all of us._

_I'm not sure what else to say, but I figured you would be glad to know that I'm getting out. That's what you always wanted, right? Once you get better, you'll be free to go wherever you want too. I've written my address on the envelope, in case you ever need anything. I can't have guests in my dorm, though, so please don't come and visit. Klaus already promised to and I don't know how to tell him 'no'._

_Anyway. I miss you._

_~~Love~~ From, _

_Vanya._

-:-

Geraldine comes into his room after breakfast, little nurse hat fixed securely to the top of her head, orderlies on her tail, a funny looking remote in her hand. 

"I have a treat for you today, Number Two."

Like he's supposed to be excited, grateful, jumping for joy. She doesn't wait for a reaction, instead waving a hand towards the orderlies who grab Diego under the arms and pull him from his bed. 

Their walk along the corridor is more of a drag, which Diego hates, but can't help in being grateful for. His eyes won't focus on anything around him, it’s too bright; an over-exposure of white clouds, but no sky to be seen. 

His side feels hot, sore to be stretched in this way, but Diego disregards the stinging feeling and hones in on his hope that this isn’t another bath. He had one yesterday; how dirty can a person get when the height of excitement is a daily staring contest with Doctor Monroe and reading the same sentences over and over out of the one book he packed from home?

The room they take him to has a table in the middle, with a chair on one side and a television on the other. It’s bigger than the ones back home, that are mainly used for recording and research, Dad says. There’s a long cable that connects it to the wall and when Geraldine turns it on, he understands why. 

She flicks through hundreds of channels then, once the orderlies sit him securely on the opposite side of the table. The room is sterile and cold, but the look of it matters little once the lights are turned out. 

He’s not stupid. Though there is only one television where typically he would be sat before _several,_ this feels enough like his old rounds of special training for him to get the gist. Maybe they are testing him. 

A series of images flash before Diego, jumping and jarring. The click of the button beneath Geraldine’s index fingers grates at his nerves, though it likely isn’t helped by the knowledge of what this room, this _treat,_ means. 

He sees the moon landing. A haunted house. The _American Chamber Orchestra,_ apparently. A cartoon about the ocean. His sister’s face, then--

“Wait!” He exclaims, breathless, and Geraldine’s finger lifts from the button on the remote. “Go ba- back.”

Geraldine doesn’t object, where typically she seems to go against his every desire. She presses another button and they’re brought back to the previous station. 

No one says anything, not a sound but Diego’s shallow breathing as he scans the small screen for his sister’s face. 

She’s there, then. 

_Allison._

Diego leans across the table to get a closer look. Her hair is different, strands of yellow in amongst her usual dark brown. She’s got makeup on, more than Dad ever allowed, and she’s talking to someone. 

It’s not an interview like the kind they used to do. The lighting is warm and not a single person on screen has looked at the camera once. They’re all reciting lines, Allison at the centre of it all. She appears distressed, though not in any way that Diego finds all that convincing. 

He knows her scared and he knows her pretending. This is indisputably the latter.

Diego thinks back to before. Before Dad took him and Allison left. Before Ben--- _no._

She'd cornered him in the kitchen, fingers clutching a thick stack of papers, and demanded that he come to her room immediately. 

In the summer they were at their best. The warmth, the golden light that filtered through her voile curtains in these brighter evenings brought Diego an inexplicable kind of comfort. Hair in painstaking plaits down her back, she slapped him in the face with them once or twice, with the dramatic twirls she claimed were so typical of actresses who knew their angles. 

"Run lines with me." She said, forcing a script into his lap. 

“Funny, Allie... get the guy who c-c-c-ca-- ” He gave up and waited for her to interrupt him, to finish his sentence. But she stood before him, then, the picture of patience, where before their interactions were most made up of frustration and misunderstanding. 

“From the top.” She said and paced to the other side of the room. “If it helps any, the agent told me that actors speak slowly. They also pause quite a lot. For _dramatic_ effect.”

He’d cut her with a smile so sharp, then. The feeling was something he couldn’t come to terms with at the time, and he’s only now seeing it for what it was.

Allison began her goodbyes long before everything collapsed. She was just smart enough to get her affairs in order before their inevitable separation. 

He can see her now, maybe, on a stage or a set; lights beaming down upon her, like a star at dusk. Neck empty of Luther's locket, eyes bright and for the world to see, not hidden behind a domino mask. 

She’s being praised, as usual. Rewarded on a job well done.

_Cut,_ someone yells inside his head. _That’s a wrap!_

And there is something in his sister that radiates belonging. _Control._ The likes of which people believed to be bountiful for The Rumour, but had always been an unfamiliar concept.

Diego is smiling. He must be. His lips are dry and cracked and stretched too far. His vision is blurry, but focuses abruptly as he realises the television screen is blank. Seems it has been that way for quite a while. 

His tongue feels hot and tastes of copper. When Diego looks down, it's to see his beige sweatshirt stained with a splash of crimson. In his shock, he is frozen, in his hope and his bone-deep fear that he has found his way back, but that it may, once more, be at a great cost. 

But it doesn't matter in the end. Because light floods the room again and Geraldine has her hands on him, shoulders shoved back against the chair and _three_ small, white pills tipped into the palm of his hand. He's not due another dose yet.

"There will be none of that, Number Two. Swallow your medicine."

-:-

It had been taboo, before now. The topic of his final few days in the so-called 'mansion' have not been mentioned once since his arrival to Shinyview. The scar he hasn't seen in so long, the one that runs jagged along the side of his head, gains no attention or comment, it is simply ignored like every other mark that's etched into his skin. 

Monroe had been content to humour him for a while. To not speak of how the taut skin of his abdomen wakes him in the night, poker hot, with the smell of something burning. She had played along with his switching of the subject, and how there were only four siblings he ever spoke of. She never taunted or sneered when he talked about his mother, only nodded, absorbing every little thing; clearly in efforts to direct him to this very moment.

"Do you remember what happened after that, Number Two?" 

"D-D-Di-- _ugh._ "

"What?"

Just like he and Mom practised. "M-My- My name is Diego."

"You'll have to forgive me." The doctor's face isn't apologetic in the slightest, but something in her gaze is uncertain. "But your father told me to call you Number Two."

He scoffs, though it's less bitter and more on the verge of being upset. _Will anyone ever call him Diego aloud again?_

"I thought you said he c-ca-can't hear us."

"He can't." She's quick to assure, hand reaching out in a soothing manner. Diego doesn't want her to touch him, it seems bizarre that the thought of doing so even occurred to her. "Diego it is, I suppose."

Diego hums, and thinks that is it. He can coast on a session with a single revelation and she will leave him be, but no. Doctor Monroe turns a page, as if to start again, and regards Diego with renewed vigour; like he's confided something in her now, like they're _friends._

"So, what is it that you remember, Diego? Following the incident in your room."

He shrugs, arms folded across his chest. Her office is cold, despite how the sun beats down on the windows, but they won't allow him to wear his sweater when the weather is so nice. 

"Who was in the room with you?"

"It w-w-was a long time ago." Diego chances, looking at his knees and not at her. 

"It was three months ago."

Three months. He can't imagine that such a length of time has passed. Not a whisper from his father, only secondhand information from strangers who now claim to have files and paperwork on precisely how he and his powers function, despite seeming to be entirely _ordinary._

"Did you know that?" Doctor Monroe asks. 

No, he did not. Typically, time is told to Diego by the healing of wounds. The mark on his side, constantly bandaged and beyond his view, tells him the time only in how much it hurts him; even then, it does so rarely due to the drugs they feed him. 

He doesn't answer her, though he looks up to meet her eyes. "Can... can I c-call my m-m-mom now?"

Monroe sighs, makes note of something on the papers before her. 

"Your father thinks it best that you refrain from phone calls. As a fellow doctor of psychiatry, I'm inclined to trust his opinion."

_Dad,_ a doctor of _psychiatry?_ Laughter chokes anything Diego was about to say. 

"Is something funny, Diego?"

"No." He shakes his head, still laughing. "No, it's no-- it's not funny."

Monroe hums in that way of hers and presses on. Keen to make the most of their hour together, like always. 

But there is no way he could ever have anticipated the next words to leave her mouth. She's kind, he thinks -- he’s gathered as much over the course of their alleged three months in each other’s company -- and yet here she is, asking him a question that feels so needlessly cruel.

“Do you miss your father?”

He must have misheard.

“ _What?_ ”

“Do you miss him?”

Typically, Diego is not short on words, only that his tongue rarely wishes to speak them. Now, he finds his thoughts entirely blank of any conceivable response. 

His father. 

A hand to hit, not one to hold. Precious few moments where it feels as if the man might value him, even care for him, that are so quickly vanquished, Diego often finds himself wondering if he imagined the whole thing. 

Dad never intended on loving them, he knows now. Perhaps there had been some end goal unknowingly directing Diego’s mind, making him think that there was wiggle room, to progress and better and become exactly who his father wanted. But things were never going to turn out that way, nothing was ever going to change. In all his sixteen years at the Umbrella Academy, not a single rank moved up or down, Luther had always been Number One and no one had budged an inch, despite moving mountains to make Dad even chance a _glance_ in their direction. 

The fact of the matter is that Diego does not know who he is when his father’s not around; who he’s supposed to be. Such a concept was never to be dictated by him, but by the man who adopted him and his siblings and crafted for them a singular purpose, that deviated and dipped into ventures that directly contradicted their mission statement: to protect the world and the ordinary people in it from harm. 

_I hate him,_ he wants to say. 

_Even more than he hates me._

_Even more than I want him to like me._

_Liar,_ is what Five would say if Five hadn’t left him. Five would have escaped this place by now and surpassed Dad’s expectations, probably outsmarted him too, just to prove a point. 

Five would see right through Doctor Monroe and what she’s trying to achieve here. He’d say something clever and strategic, yes. Diego would like to do that too, to save his own skin (to impress his father). 

“I w-w-wish to return to my father as soon as possible.” He says, trying for cool and collected, trying not to fidget so much, though his hands feel otherwise and close tightly into fists. “The Academy needs me.”

Monroe nods, though there is something displeased in the way she looks at him. Resigned, he will later think. 

“What is left of the Umbrella Academy now?” She asks instead of prying further, lighting another fuse that Diego doesn’t recognise until it’s half-singed. 

It is these feelings, most likely, that threaten to overwhelm everything. Thoughts of what he has lost, what he cannot get back, that have yet to truly hit him due to the drugs he's been pumped with. Drugs that are ever-changing, that dip in dose only to rise again when Diego almost goes to a place that is deemed too dangerous now, too _lethal._

“You should r-r-r-read the newspaper. That’ll tell you.”

“Number One and Number Two, will that be it?”

Fingers run swiftly over the ridge along the side of his skull. The skin is so smooth there now, in a crooked line that mars the side of his poorly shaved head. He thinks of how it will look next to Luther when they pose for photos. 

“Yes.” Diego says, unflinching. 

“I thought that you and Number One had a contentious relationship, no?”

Monroe flicks through her notes as she asks this, like it’s something Diego’s said before when that is not even the _slightest_ bit true. He hasn’t spoken about Luther, he’s certain. How dare Doctor Monroe act like she knows a single thing about Diego and his siblings.

“He’s my _brother_ and we have a j-- a job to do.” Diego bites. “I d-d-don’t expect you to understand. You’re _ordinary._ ”

It seems as if they are both pretending, though what Monroe is afraid of, Diego can’t fathom. _He’s_ pretending in order to survive, to get out of this place and take everything back to how it used to be.

“If you are so extraordinary, Diego,” Monroe says, fanning the flame. “Then why are you _here?_ ”

-:-

_Date of Entry: ???_

_Sunny today, I think it is almost Fall. Our birthday should be soon; maybe Mom will make strawberry shortcake -- that was always Luther’s favourite. No loss. I hate strawberries._

_I hate baths too. And breakfast and quiet time and sessions with the doctor and how there is nobody here. Nobody._

_Speech therapy is worse than elocution lessons and I am_ _tired_ _of talking._

_Please forgive my messy handwriting, I am tired of moving too._

_I don’t think I will write here anymore._

-:-

“Tell me about Ben.”

Monroe swirls her pen around like it’s a casual thing. But he can see the poorly-veiled tension in her body for what it is:

_Fear._

“ _No._ ” Diego responds through gritted teeth.

The remainder of the session is spent in silence.

-:-

_Dearest Diego,_

_It rained today, which is a pity for summer. I do hope you are getting plenty of sunshine, as you need your Vitamin D if you are to become a strong, young man. Is there a view from your bedroom? If so, I am rather envious of you. There is not much to see beyond the windows of the Academy, though often when I spot people walking along the street, I find myself thinking of you and wondering what fun you might be up to._

_Vanya is off to the conservatory in Boston. I am so proud of her for all she has achieved in her practise of music. Did you know that it is the oldest music conservatory in the country? Perhaps you and I may go to see her in concert some day._

_Klaus has taken it upon himself to knock down the wall between his room and Vanya's, now that she has left us. He gave Pogo an awful fright. Luther volunteered to do most of the work, though as you can imagine it was a rather dusty affair. The boys were coughing all evening! I know such a thing wouldn't bother you in the slightest, strong as your lungs are. I do miss my beautiful Allison, though I’m glad that she was not present -- dust tends to aggravate her allergies quite severely, as I’m sure you can recall._

_~~Ben-~~ _

_Your burn should be approximately seventy-percent healed by this point. Of course, I must allow for a margin of error, as I have no idea how long this letter will take to reach you. Though I know you are in the company of medical professionals, I must implore that they not use any burn creams or gel on your skin; they do more harm than good. You will have to excuse me for being such a worry wart, my darling, it's only because I miss you so!_

_Hugs and kisses from your siblings and I. Pogo says 'hello' and that he looks forward to seeing you when you are better._

_Love always,_

_Mom_

  
  


_P.S. I found something while turning your bed down, you must have forgotten it while packing. Please find it attached._

-:-

In this dream, it is not Five who burns. 

It is Diego. Body on fire, epicentre a single point, where he is melted and forged and part of him is burned from existence. 

Dad never lifts the poker and Diego never stops screaming. 

-:-

The day is grey to its very core. 

The sunlight doesn’t wake Diego, because there is none. A murky shadow blankets the world in a grim layer of cloud that is impossible to see beyond.

He preferred it before, when missing his family didn’t feel so tangible. It used to be a thing he could look forward to and not dwell on. However bad things felt in the moment, at least he knew at the end of the tunnel there would be Mom, there would be Klaus and Luther and... well, they’re all that’s left now.

The edge of the papers are soft from how often he’s held them in his hand. Mom’s letter is in slightly better condition, though that is not for lack of handling and mostly because she had clearly borrowed Pogo’s stationary, where Vanya had written to him on a torn sheet from a lined notebook. 

Ben’s drawing is perhaps most battered of all. The oldest, soaked by decade old tears, crinkled from how often it had been folded away, for fear of Dad catching Diego dwelling on such a sentimental thing. It had slipped out of Mom’s envelope and into Diego’s lap like a pressing reminder, a pleasant ache that made him want to cry.

With the utmost care, Diego looks at each piece of paper and situates himself in the world from which they came. The world where Vanya plays him her latest piece with poorly-veiled pride, where Mom hums along, or even dares to sway to the music. 

The world where Ben is alive. 

Where before he would have felt a stir of something painful and trembling in his gut, there is nothing. Only a longing, really. The kind brought on by a well of grief, so deep and never ending; a place that is infinite and a place he can drown. 

Diego curls up on his bed like a comma, wrapped around his few prized possessions. He tucks each piece of paper carefully inside the book be brought -- Ben’s copy of _Ulysses,_ full of earmarks and criticisms written in pencil --- and presses the hard back flat to his chest. 

That is how Nurse Geraldine finds Diego when she comes to rouse him. A pull at his shoulder blades and hands grabbing his arms, the floor moves beneath his feet in a blur.

He’s lifted onto a table, padded with a paper sheet beneath him. Someone pulls his arms up, holds them high in the air while another set of hands lifts the hem of his t-shirt. 

“My book…” He offers pathetically, lax and giving no struggle. They have to read Mom’s letter. But surely they’ve already seen it --- both envelopes he’d received had been torn and poorly resealed. 

Geraldine’s hands are cold on his skin and Diego thinks back to a time when everything felt so unbearably hot. He flinches from her touch and she tuts, the shirt is pulled over his head and tickles the scar above his ear in passing. Oh, how it itches. 

“It’s in your room, yes. We’re taking off your bandages today, isn’t that nice?”

No, it’s not. Mom said in her letter that his wound has not yet healed. Diego has no context for what it is that requires covering, only that Mom wouldn’t insist on it being covered if it weren’t absolutely necessary. She’s always taken care of him, she’s always done what’s best. 

“No… no. I don’t-- don’t think we should.”

He is ignored, Geraldine’s ice cold digits making quick work of the gauze that had once wrapped him like a mummy. Diego is used to the feeling of it from having the bandages changed, but there is a sense of finality to this --- a revelation underneath, the possibility of _looking_ and actually understanding what it was that happened to him. 

“Look, it’s healed up very nicely.” 

He doesn't realise that his eyes are closed until he opens them. A glance downwards reveals a welt on his side, rippled and hollowed slightly in the middle, like a bullet wound. The surrounding skin is sticky from humidity and quite a bit paler than the rest of him. It looks like he’s spent too much time in the bath --- maybe his years are catching up with him. 

_Pruning,_ Klaus would call it. 

The air is cold and Diego doesn’t so much feel how his breaths heave as he sees the rise and fall of his chest, up and down, irregular yet unconcerning. 

There is a line that runs down vertically from the divot of his diaphragm. Pink and white, precisely sliced. Mom must have done it. There are no stitches, though there must have been, and he doesn’t recall them ever being removed. He can’t even remember it hurting, let alone begin to wonder why he might have it. 

These bizarre and disturbing facts refuse to align in his mind. Diego remembers every scar, every cut and slice and broken bone. Every bruise, every wound that has taken that bit longer to heal -- longer than Luther, at least --- but he’d been content to ignore these newly acquired ones. A blank spot in his memory, the only marks for which he doesn’t have a story. 

“Put him in the bath.” Nurse Geraldine tells the orderlies. If they are surprised by his compliance, it goes unsaid; as most things do with those who watch him, almost as though they are forbidden from communicating. 

There is little point in fighting it, for it results in the same thing over and over. Sedation, needle penetrating any available appendage and the loss of twelve hours from his life. 

So Diego stands easily, sweats pooling at his ankles before he’s dragged and forced to climb over the lip of the tub. The water is higher now -- he should have known this would follow the removal of his dressings --- and threatens to spill over onto the floor. 

It’s too deep, made of steel and all the cold things that remind him of the basement at home. Nurse Geraldine and the orderlies observe just as Dad used to, often accompanied by Mom and a hesitant Pogo, later joined by eager spectators, back on dry land. 

To be looked at like this is suffocating. If Diego closes his eyes tight enough, the flashing colours that brighten the darkness begin to look an awful lot like the bursting bulbs of cameras. He cringes and folds into himself, heels digging into the metal base of the bath; no cuffs here, but he is still trapped. 

Knees tucked to his chest, Diego holds back any tears with the promise that he will release them somewhere quiet. His room is not the _Void,_ but if he focuses on the wash of blue and the lonely silence surrounding him _there,_ he can pretend it is something close.

It’s safe now to do that now, he thinks. It has to be. 

“Rocket.”

Geraldine reads words from his worksheet, each one echoing around the empty wash room, bouncing off the tile. 

“Radio.”

Diego’s cheek turns against the scarred skin of his kneecap. He faces away from her and towards the window, where a sun shower pelts softly against the panes of glass. 

“ _Brother._ ” She bites once more before giving up. “Repeat the words, Number Two. We have much to do today.”

His lack of a response causes Geraldine to bristle, barb at the ends and ready herself for a strike. Diego doesn’t think he could answer, even if he felt inclined to; his tongue lays heavy and useless in his mouth, working to push down any crying for fear of the pathetic picture he will paint. 

“Have you taken your medicine this morning?”

_No._ They ripped him from bed before he even thought to. But he doesn’t need them anymore, he can go home now. He’s better like they all wanted, he’s ready. 

“Your dosage has been reduced significantly. Remembering to take two pills in the morning should not present such a problem.”

Diego doesn’t even look at Geraldine and instead thinks of what Mom said about his wounds. Seventy-percent healed looks like a long time ago. They don’t even hurt. What would Mom think of these pills? Would she think them necessary anymore when he is fine, when there hasn’t been a whisper from the Horror or even the _Void_ in months?

(He’s trying not to grieve that too)

Diego unfurls slightly in the tub, eyes falling to the long scar on his stomach.

_Is this where you planned to leave me?_ He asks inside his head. 

_It’s not what you wanted, right?_

_I’m not Ben._

_You’re going to leave me alone now and I can go home._

“Fine.” Nurse Geraldine sighs. “We shall discuss the matter with Doctor Monroe after lunch.”

-:-

“You mustn’t listen to what Nurse Geraldine tells you.”

_Whiplash_ is perhaps the only word that Diego can think of to describe what he’s currently feeling. 

Nurse Geraldine had marched him to Doctor Monroe’s office following an untouched lunch as if he had done something terribly wrong and she was going to make him pay for it. Like how Luther used to stalk him to Dad’s office following any kind of incident that he could even partially pin on Number Two. 

She’d dumped him in one of the squeaky leather chairs and told Monroe all about how Diego feels uninclined to take his medicine now and perhaps that is something worth looking into, worth _reassessing._

“I find myself that the boy’s daydreams have worsened.” Geraldine said, like she was the authority on the subject of the happenings within Diego’s mind. “An increase may be appropriate.”

“Ah, thank you, Nurse.” Monroe dismissed. “I’ll take it from here.”

Now it’s just the two of them --- Monroe pacing behind her desk, distorting the grey light that filters in between her office blinds; Diego sitting in his clean jumper and sweatpants, feeling bare without the gauze on his torso and confused by the situation at hand. 

“So I _don’t_ take the pills?” He asks, genuinely baffled. 

“No. _Yes._ ” He’s never seen Doctor Monroe look so conflicted. Usually she is the picture of calm, sure of her actions and her intent, but today is a bemusing change. 

She turns to face him then, standing still as a statue, expression as severe as if it had been carved from stone. 

“Do you _want_ to keep taking them? I thought you were afraid.”

Diego grips onto the arms of the chair for lack of anything to hold onto. What is going on? He never _said_ that. 

“I’m not-- I’m not _afraid._ ” 

“You told me you were.”

“No, I di-d--” He huffs, fingers making indents in the leather. “I didn’t. Stop _lying._ ”

Monroe sighs and for a moment he thinks she’s going to relent and agree with him, admit to conspiring against him and coming up with this truth that he undoubtedly felt (feels) but would never have willingly admitted to her. 

“You have told me a lot of things, Diego. You may not remember --- I think that the injectables were overkill, I never agreed with them --- but there were some sessions where you just, well, it was like someone had reached inside of you and unzipped _something_ and everything just came spilling out.”

_What?_

“I’m sorry to inform you of that, I truly am.” Monroe moves to sit on the edge of her seat and leans over her desk to shorten the distance between them. “I know it must feel rather invasive and I understand if you’re not in the mood to talk right now, but I didn’t even write most of it down. I didn’t know _why_ at the time, but I do now…”

The tightness in Diego’s chest signals that his breaths must be coming and going in quick succession, but there is no rise and fall when he looks, only a rigid and shocked stillness. 

“I don’t understand.” He chokes. 

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

She smiles at him then. It’s not a happy thing, instead filled with pity. With guilt. 

“You want to go back to saving the world, don’t you?”

He nods, but it takes every bit of effort he has. 

“They want that for you too. Eventually.” Who are _they?_

“They want you to get better Diego --- to go back to how you were, with the tank and the searching and saving the world. And… I’m not explaining myself very clearly, am I?”

Diego shakes head, the vice like grip of his ribs are crushing in their attempts to remain still and calm. 

Monroe sighs, a wavering thing.

"The idea is that when you are older, and ready, your body more capable and stronger, you will be prepared to face the _truth_ of your condition. You will embrace it and be of use to many, all around the world, I imagine." 

"Like a _hero._ "

_Another lie,_ Five would say.

" _No._ You've been fooled into thinking that what you're doing is heroic, when the truth is that there are some things that shouldn't be known. Some people that shouldn't be found."

What is she _doing?_ Doesn’t she want him to get better? 

Diego found Five; he found Allison and Klaus; he found Ben, even though he was too late. There were others, yes, he would have rather left alone -- their blood stains his hands and his dreams --- but he had cemented himself as valuable in his ability to find them. There was something to gain, something he could prove to his father. 

“They’re content to have you believe this fantasy until it is no longer convenient, but I-- well, I don’t think that’s _fair._ You deserve to know _now_ \--- if your life is to be in any way decent, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you.” 

With each word it becomes clearer that Monroe is not messing around. She looks ready to scream or even cry, but only in her eyes. Her body remains still, immoveable. 

“You are not a hero. You are a _boy,_ Diego. A boy afflicted with abilities that will only ever do you more harm than good. Those pills, they were designed to _protect_ you from that place. I know you don’t like to take them, but I promise you, it’s for the best. Even they agree with me on that matter.”

A noise slips from his mouth, a release of air from the cage of his chest. It burns, it all _hurts._ Nothing has hurt this much in so long. His efforts to interrupt are squashed beneath Monroe’s will, beneath her wide eyes and urging tone. 

"You will go out into that world, Diego, and every waking minute will be spent trying to escape the inside of your own head. You will not be safe or happy, you will be _scared._ You will see things that no one, not _anyone,_ ought to see, and you will suffer for it. So, for the love of _God,_ take the damn pills. _Take them._ "

He's never seen an urgency quite like it. The manner with which Doctor Monroe addresses him, frantic and like a last ditch effort. She's begging him. Her _eyes_ beg him, like they are both in trouble. Perhaps Diego is not the only one stuck. 

So he nods. 

“Oh-- Okay.” He tells her, finally exhaling. “Okay.”

When Monroe looks at him again, fingers brushing softly against her temple, she flushes. She smiles apologetically, like they’d just been talking about something else entirely. 

“You don’t have to be what he wants you to be.” She says, coming around her desk to stand before him, to reach out. Diego doesn’t lean back, but he doesn’t welcome her either. 

“Nothing good or _extraordinary._ Perhaps, the most you can do is just _be._ ”

In that particular moment, shock crushes any sense of revelation that might have hit him. Diego has no idea what he’s supposed to say, or whether there is a test in this. It feels a lot like when Allison used to want him to play along, when she wanted him to read lines with her; follow a script. 

Later, he will understand. Without doubt, he will see the truth of the matter, the severity of it and why Doctor Monroe took such a risk to convince him of it. She was not content to pretend, to fool him into a false sense of security only to throw him in at the deep end once more, vulnerable to all within the blackness of his own mind. 

She refused to comply with rules he did not know the entirety of, and instead served him a warning, a _promise_ of what was to come if he didn’t just take the pills like he was told. 

No sugarcoating of heroism, no rose-tint to the truth she served him. 

Brutal honesty. Survival. Something she pays for; with what? Diego doesn’t know. If he had the _Void,_ he could find out. 

He doesn’t have the _Void,_ not anymore. But when he shows up to Monroe’s office the following afternoon for his therapy session and she is nowhere to be found, what he _does_ know is that he will never see her again.

-:-

The new doctor gives him something. It's in a syringe, and when the miniscule metal tube pierces the skin of his arm, something sinister slithers its way down Diego's spine. 

It does nothing until his chair starts to melt into the floor, bending at the legs and throwing him off and onto the linoleum; which meets him slowly and painfully. His skin sticks to it like glue, shedding layers and burning until he feels himself being yanked upwards. 

Luther’s hands are on his chest, pressing hard. Luther shouldn’t even be here. Luther’s going to break his ribs. And Diego doesn’t even need to breathe, so it’s not like that would actually be a problem, except Luther is going to tell Dad and Dad will be so disappointed in Diego that he’ll never be allowed to go on a mission ever again. 

“Let me go.” He begs, and it sounds like someone else.

_“You think Dad hasn’t told me?”_

Luther's hands are burning him, they’re going to set him on fire. Like Five is on fire. Sweat wets his temple and gathers at the nape of his neck and he fears that the Horror will not like this, _They’re_ going to be so mad. 

They like it _cold._

Everything changes and his stomach swoops with the feeling of the floor being whipped from beneath him. Luther is sitting across from him now. Luther is sitting at home in his room, curled up with sick on the front of his pajama shirt and dried blood under his nails. 

There’s blood on the floor, when Diego looks down. It’s coming from his nose and taints his tongue with the taste of iron. 

“Mindscape potentially accessed at twenty-one thirty-six. Increase in dosage required.”

A voice crackles and the vision falls apart. 

Diego opens his eyes and the room is dark and empty. 

Nobody is coming for him. 

-:-

Diego's final few months at Shinyview are a single smudge in his memory. 

Therapy is relentless, and while his speech has improved, his want to talk has decreased by a vast amount. 

He sits in the dark and stares at screens for hours, he lays in horizontal, covered versions of his bath at home, where everything is black and nothing happens. If anything does, he’s supposed to write it in his new journal (it remains blank). He’s told to jump into the facility’s pool and hold his breath.

Everything feels like home again. 

His dreams are brief and inconsequential. They are of the past -- playing spaceships with One and dollies with Four, warm feet pressed against his shins in the dark, an index finger and thumb meeting in a circle around his wrist, the smell of antiseptic and turpentine and blood.

There is a danger to this, of falling back into the _Void_ that still does its best to claim him once more. So he must remind himself of the truth, as Monroe put it, of what he must do. 

Keep the body occupied, keep it from that which threatens to swallow it up --- the infinite unknown and its inky tones, that which only Diego will ever understand. 

When it’s time to leave, there is a sense of finality to it. Diego walks along the corridor in his shoes, trainers from home, the weight of his bag slapping rhythmically against his leg. 

He is flanked by the orderlies, one each side, though they seem unconcerned about him fleeing -- he’s no longer their problem. 

Having not seen Shinyview’s front doors since his very first day in the place, the light that shoots through their windows is a shock to his system. Frosted glass conceals any truth of what may lay beyond, but it doesn’t matter. He’s leaving. He’s finally going home.

When the orderlies move ahead of him to open the door, Diego can’t help how his eyes squint. It’s so bright, the grass green and the gravel grey, pebbles of it sticking into the soles of his shoes as he steps outside. 

The sky is grey too, thick with clouds that hide the sun, but that is soon of no concern, for the spot of pink that strikes him on the horizon --- a hoop skirt and a smart jacket, tucked neatly beneath a black umbrella despite there being no rain. 

Mom stands by the car, dainty as ever, and opens her arms to him. The umbrella flies wide, caught in the breeze and Diego runs to her, bag dropped a few steps from her feet. 

He all but collapses into his mother’s embrace, a slump followed by frantic fingers that grab for any kind of purchase. They're the same height now, he is perhaps even a fraction taller. She still smells of lavender and, strangely, freshly cut grass. Has winter passed so soon? 

She pulls back then, to hold his face in her gloved hands. 

“Darling,” She sighs, and _oh,_ how Diego missed her. “Are you well?”

And for the first time in a long time, Diego laughs. A true thing, untainted by bitterness or nonsense, and made only of sheer joy. For he is well now, in this very moment, with Shinyview behind him and his mother before him, smiling and real. 

Mom tuts and bundles him into the car with his bag like he is but a child, reaching across to fasten his seatbelt before shutting the door and making her way to the other side of the car. It’s only as Mom is buckling herself in that it occurs to Diego that he’s never seen her out of the house before. Why now? Is she a guarantee to his father that Diego will come home? Or is it that no one else was available?

“Mom… you’re _here._ ” He says, stupidly, too dumbstruck by the sight of her sitting next to him in the backseat. Up front is Abhijat, back from wherever it was he went while they were all driving each other around. Diego waves at him in the mirror. 

Mom laughs, a sweet sound. “Of course I am, silly.” 

She ducks her head to wave at the orderlies who stand by the doors of the hulking hospital, which appears more like a hotel from the outside. For as large as it looks, Diego doesn’t recall seeing all that much of it. Nurse Geraldine is nowhere to be seen and he breathes a sigh of relief at the thought that he will likely never see her again. 

Then they are off, down the winding drive. 

“How are you here?” Diego tries after a time, when the looming trees turn into fenced fields, the sky a blearly blanket above them. 

“Your father was kind enough to allow me to come.” She says, turning to face him with her hands folded neatly in her lap.

His father. Using Mom because he knows that Diego wouldn’t be able to resist coming back to her, surely. In all the time that Diego had known he’d soon be returning home (which was actually only two days, he’d been given very little notice) he hadn’t spared much thought for the fact that he would once again be in the company of his father. 

He only thought of seeing his siblings again. Even Luther. Of sleeping in his own bed and waking up to his favourite breakfast while Pogo reads the paper. No bad things coloured these thoughts, silly and dangerous as they were, because for a small period of time, hope had blinded him to anything that would hurt. 

Diego did not think of the training, the early mornings and late nights spent in the freezing cold of the water, of the courtyard, the stifling heat of his father’s study and those who happen to frequent it; of all the empty beds, the long gone sisters and the stuck brother. The dead one too. 

It hits him all at once. A hit that he should have seen coming, a projectile that got lost in the fray and is far too close to be stopped.

“Now, I hope you don’t mind, but we’ll have to pay a visit to the pharmacy before heading home. We can fill that prescription the doctor wrote for you, hm?”

The pills, yes. He can’t imagine that Dad will approve of him taking such a thing, particularly when it completely stifles the one thing that makes Diego useful, but Doctor Monroe had insisted. In fact, it had been her parting wish. 

“Do you-- did Dad give you any money?” He asks her, to avoid thinking much further on that topic. 

“Oh yes, dear.” Mom laughs. “Though, it all goes straight onto the account, so there’s no need to worry. Your brother asked me to buy him some chapstick while we’re there. Cherry, he said, but I’d rather get him something with high sun protection.”

“Good idea, Mom.” He says, slow and calm, breathing easy. “Is he home?”

“Klaus has a party with his friends today, isn’t that lovely?” Her tone is overly pleasant before shifting to one of seriousness. It’s unsurprising, though Diego wonders what kind of friends Klaus has made in his absence. “I brought your coat, darling. Do put it on.”

She unfolds it from the middle seat, where his bag also rests, and passes it over. The fabric is stiff --- she must have ironed it --- but still fits perfectly when he awkwardly twists his arms into the sleeves. 

“I got my- my knives back.” He tells her excitedly, moving to unzip his bag and retrieve the small case. She had helped him pack it, afterall. 

But Mom reaches out and urges his hands to let go of it, placing the case back between the folds of his clothes. 

“Leave them in there for safe-keeping.” She says, before retrieving an envelope from her coat pocket and zipping it into the bag’s interior pocket. “There’s our money, too. We wouldn’t want to misplace it before reaching the pharmacy.”

Strange. 

Mom no longer looks at him, instead her gaze falls directly ahead. For a moment, he thinks she’s looking at the back of the seat, but it’s then that Diego sees it: the quick dart of her eyes to meet Abhijat’s in the rearview mirror. Something significant passes between them and Diego’s mind scrambles to understand it. 

“I got your letter.” He tries to recapture her attention. “I think it w-was delayed, though.”

“That’s lovely, Diego.” Mom smiles, still not looking at him. “Did your laparotomy heal nicely?”

“Yeah. The burn too.” 

Mom smiles, nods, finally fixing him with a look that he can’t quite read. 

“Well, you must take care of yourself now. You are seventeen, hm? A young man, really.”

But they are headed back to the Umbrella Academy, surely. Why would Mom say such a thing when before she had been so keen to assure them all that she would _always_ be there to assist them in their health problems? 

Again, Abhijat’s eyes flit in the mirror, and Diego can feel how the man moves -- slow and measured, his typically calming composure wrecked by tension. It is then that Diego looks out the window, unaware of his surroundings until now (a voice that sounds like Five and then Luther, then both at once tells him of how idiotic that was). First glance reveals that they are in the city, yes, but not anywhere that makes sense. There was a direct route from Shinyview, a main road they’d taken on the way there, so why aren’t they taking the same road back? 

“Wh- Where are we?” He asks the pair of them, hoping his sudden anxiety hasn’t made itself too apparent. 

“We’re on the way to the pharmacy.” Mom says. But no, there is a pharmacy right next to their house and two more a block away. Why go to one so far out? 

“The address is on the prescription.” She tells him, like that’s something he might need to know. “The prescription is in your bag. With your knives and your clothes. You will remember that, won’t you?”

“Yeah…” Dumbfounded, Diego grips the strap of his bag. It’s a delayed realisation, much like his earlier few, that again hits him all at once. Though this one, well, it lacks any kind of logic. 

Because he _knows_ his Mom and he knows her behaviour. He’d spent most of his time in Shinyview reflecting on their time together and the things he missed the most. But nothing about this is right or normal, almost as if a wire has been tripped or a conspiracy is at play, one she’s clearly not alone in

Abhijat is driving _so_ slow and Diego is certain now that he’s circled the same block three times. Up ahead, the traffic lights turn red and Mom perks up, fingers twitching in that way they used to when she’d give them an extra cookie despite Dad explicitly ordering otherwise. 

A feel of the door handle tells Diego that he car is not locked when it _always_ is, and when he looks to Mom he sees her nod, though she doesn’t seem to realise she’s doing it. 

As a test of sorts, Diego makes clear his intentions to open the door as Abhijat pulls up to the red light and neither of them say a thing to stop him. 

“What a beautiful day.” Mom exclaims suddenly, her smile a tad crooked, her eyes anywhere but him. “A beautiful day for a walk, I think.”

The traffic light above turns green and Abhijat does not move to start the car. 

And later, Diego may look back on this moment as a foolish mistake, a misreading of the signs that were screaming for him to leave, but in the moment he is far too sure of himself. It might be the drugs still in his system, or the fact that it is _Mom_ telling him these things, willing him to go. Or perhaps it is the fact that Diego _knows_ what will happen if he goes home; he knows that once he is there, he will never make it out again. 

So it is that he bolts. 

Bag in hand, full of clothes and knives, he shoves the car door open and flies onto the pavement. 

To risk looking back would be the biggest mistake of all. To follow in the footsteps of Orpheus and be forever trapped in the Underworld. He knows that seeing his mother a final time will break him, but that it will be worth the hurt, because he has never envisioned leaving her; not like this. 

So he looks back, and when he does, it’s to see Mom’s gloved hand reach across the backseat and slowly close the door behind him. Once it is secure and the light turns amber, Abhijat drives away. 

Then they are gone and Diego is alone. The clouds move in the sky above him and rain spots his clothing in small splashes. Like tears, like blood.

He forgot to take the umbrella.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're confused, diego is too. much of this is dependent on later chapters, but the conversation with doctor monroe was vital (and heavily based on miss lucy in kazuo ishiguro's _never let me go_ ). i'm quite nervous about this one and how long it is, but i didn't want to drag this experience on for longer than needed. the chapters are going to start covering larger chunks of time, so canon actually isn't that far off!
> 
> there may be some familiar faces in the next chapter, since diego is back out in the world. see you next time <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Commissioned Art for black flies on the windowsill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867194) by [crystalrainwing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalrainwing/pseuds/crystalrainwing)




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